In Figuig Berber, like in many other Berber languages, it is possible to express the indirect object by a lexical expression and by a pronominal clitic in the same sentence. This construction, called “dative doubling” in the literature, is in variation with constructions that do not have a pronominal clitic. In this article, dative doubling is studied in two corpora, one written corpus (Benamara 2011), and one spoken corpus, collected by the author. It is shown that dative doubling (...) is all but absent in the written corpus, while it is quite frequent in the spoken corpus. In the spoken corpus, there is a clear correlation with information structure. Dative doubling is only rarely found with indirect objects that express new information, while it appears more than half of the times when indirect objects express old information. In addition, it is obligatory when expressing old information with the verb ini ‘to say’. (shrink)

The hypothesis was tested that transfer and facilitation of learning in early syntactic development does not rely on semantic analogy among the items. The study focused on the verb-indirect object (VI) construction. Longitudinal naturalistic speech corpora of 14 Hebrew-speaking children (1;04–2;08) were analyzed, 9 females and 5 males, White and predominantly middle class. There was facilitation of learning among the first 10 verbs in the VI pattern, as evidenced by the accelerating growth curves. However, there was much semantic (...) variability among the 10 indirect objects, and most had no semantically similar antecedents in the same construction. The results indicate that facilitation of learning of early syntax is most probably not mediated by semantic similarity. (shrink)

The principal aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between intersubjectivity and grammar. We argue that intersubjectivity represents, on the one hand, a prerequisite for the development of language as a symbolic system, and therefore also for the development of grammar. Furthermore, we attempt to show that language, and especially grammar, codify intersubjectivity. That is to say, grammatical constructions represent the intersubjective interactions that situated agents maintain in different pragmatic contects. We call this phenomenon the meta-representational capacity of (...) language. Our main object of analysis is the development of the ditransitive construction in the Spanish language. The evolution of this construction makes it clear that there is an important correlation between the degree of complexity of the codified intersubjective interaction and grammatically obligatory nature and the prominence of the grammatical construction that codifies it: the greater the complexity, the greater its obligatoriness, and vice versa. (shrink)

Abstract: Hilary Putnam has reformulated his model-theoretic argument as an argument against indirect realism in the philosophy of perception. This new argument is reviewed and defended. Putnam’s new focus on philosophical theories of perception (instead of metaphysical realism) makes better sense of his previous responses to the objection from the causal theory of reference. It is argued that the model-theoretic argument can also be construed as an argument that holders of a causal theory of reference should adopt direct realism (...) in the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

I defend indirect perceptual realism against two recent and related charges to it offered by A. D. Smith and P. Snowdon, both stemming from demonstrative reference involving indirect perception. The needed aspects of the theory of demonstratives are not terribly new, but their connection to these objections has not been discussed. The groundwork for my solution emerges from considering normal cases of indirect perception (e.g., seeing something depicted on a television) and examining the role this indirectness plays (...) in demonstrative assertions. I argue that indirectness routinely if not typically plays a justificatory role in such judgements, and not a semantic one, and that the same can be said of such judgements when considered within the indirect realist framework. The denial of this, on my analysis, is essential to the criticisms of Snowdon and Smith. The discussion is extended to include scenarios involving the sorts of misconceptions Smith employs. (shrink)

Epistemic Indirect Realism is the position that justification for contingent propositions about the extra-mental world requires an inference based on a subjective, experiential mental state. One objection against EIR is that it runs contrary to common sense and practice; in essence, ordinary people do not form beliefs about things in the external world on the basis of experiential mental states. This objection implies EIR is contrary to ordinary experience, impractical, and leads to scepticism. In this paper, I will defend (...) EIR against this objection by distinguishing EIR based on conceptual awareness and non-conceptual awareness. In particular, I will argue that direct acquaintance provides sufficient awareness that can explain how ordinary folks are capable of forming justified beliefs about the external world in a way consistent with EIR. Overall, I present a framework for showing that EIR can satisfy ordinary epistemic practices without betraying human nature or over-intellectualizing the required epistemic standards for possessing a justified belief. (shrink)

This article shows that in 1.4.2.15-24 of the Treatise of Human Nature, Hume presents his own position on objects, which is to be distinguished from both the vulgar and philosophical conception of objects. Here, Hume argues that objects that are effectively imagined to have a “perfect identity” are imagined due to the constancy and coherence of our perceptions (what we may call ‘level 1 constancy and coherence’). In particular, we imagine that objects cause such perceptions, via what I call ‘ (...) class='Hi'>indirect causation.’ In virtue of imagining ideas of objects that have a perfect identity, our perceptions seem to be even more constant and coherent (what we may call ‘level 2 constancy and coherence’). Thus, in addition to seeing that Hume is presenting his own position on objects in this section of the Treatise, we see that he is working with a previously unrecognized kind of causation, i.e., indirect causation, and that he has two kinds of constancy and coherence in mind: level 1 and level 2. (shrink)

The paper deals with sentence adverbials and clauses with the propositional content “no doubt can be cast on ...” and their occurrence in monological argumentative discourse. Such adverbials and clauses are regarded as illocutionary indicators of indirect directives aiming at the verbal behaviour of the reader, or, more precisely, at the omission of verbal activity on reader's part. Such attempts to influence the reader's behaviour can be both fair ones, to anticipate reader's objections, but also manipulative ones, so as (...) to suppress them. That is why some general guidelines are given how to distinguish between the discourse-organizing and the manipulative function of indirect directives in concern. (shrink)

According to Uriah Kriegel’s self-representational theory of consciousness, mental state M is conscious just in case it is a complex with suitably integrated proper parts, M 1 and M 2, such that M 1 is a higher-order representation of lower-order representation M 2. Kriegel claims that M thereby “indirectly” represents itself, and he attempts to motivate this claim by appealing to what he regards as intuitive cases of indirect perceptual and pictorial representation. For example, Kriegel claims that it’s natural (...) to say that in directly perceiving the front surface of an apple one thereby perceives the apple itself. Cases such as this are supposed to provide intuitive support for the principle that if X represents Y, and Y is highly integrated into complex object Z, then X indirectly represents Z. In this paper I provide counterexamples to Kriegel’s principle of indirect representation, before going on to argue that we can explain what is going on in those cases in which the subject seems to represent a complex whole by representing one its parts without positing indirect representations anyway. I then argue that my alternative approach is superior to Kriegel’s in a number of ways, thereby rendering his theory of consciousness implausible. (shrink)

This article argues that, as commonly understood, indirect discrimination is not necessarily unjust: 1) indirect discrimination involves the disadvantaging in relation to a particular benefit and such disadvantages are not unjust if the overall distribution of benefits and burdens is just; 2) indirect discrimination focuses on groups and group averages and ignores the distribution of harms and benefits within groups subjected to discrimination, but distributive justice is concerned with individuals; and 3) if indirect discrimination as such (...) is unjust, strict egalitarianism has to be the correct account of distributive justice, but such egalitarianism appears vulnerable to the leveling down objection (whether decisively or not), and many theorists explicitly reject strict egalitarianism anyway. The last point threatens the position of liberals who oppose indirect discrimination but think significant inequalities can be just. (shrink)

Indirect realists maintain that our perceptions of the external world are mediated by our 'perceptions' of subjective intermediaries such as sensations. Multiple reference occurs when a word or an instance of it has more than one reference. I argue that, because indirect realists hold that speakers typically and unknowingly directly perceive something subjective and indirectly perceive something objective, the phenomenon of multiple reference is an important resource for their view. In particular, a challenge that A. D. Smith has (...) recently put forward for indirect realists can be overcome by appreciating how multiple reference is likely to arise when a projectivist variety of indirect realism is interpreted by speakers adhering to a naïve direct realism. (shrink)

The non-identity problem is the problem of grounding moral wrongdoing in cases in which an action affects who will exist in the future. Consider a woman who intentionally conceives while on medication that is harmful for a fetus. If the resulting child is disabled as a result of the medication, what makes the woman's action morally wrong? I argue that an explanation in terms of harmful rights violations fails, and I focus on Peter Markie's recent rights-based defense. Markie's analysis rests (...) on the notion of an indirect harm, and I show that the calculation of an indirect harm relies on an improper baseline for the determination of whether or not an action adversely affects a patient's interests. I also defend an impersonal duty-based analysis of the wrongdoing in non-identity cases against an objection by Markie. I close by arguing that the rights-based analysis is insensitive to context and that context is morally relevant in the determination of the moral valence of actions in cases of non-identity. This failure provides a pro tanto reason to favor an impersonal duty-based analysis of the wrongdoing in non-identity cases. (shrink)

Derek Parfit has notably argued that while a moral theory should not be directly self-defeating, there is nothing necessarily wrong with a moral theory that is only indirectly self-defeating. Here I resist this line of argument. I argue instead that indirectly self-defeating moral theories are indeed problematic. Parfit tries to sidestep the oddities of indirectly self-defeating theories by focusing on the choice of dispositions rather than actions. But the very considerations that can make it impossible to achieve a theory's aims (...) if we try to do what the theory recommends can also make it impossible to achieve a theory's aims if we instead try to adopt the dispositions the theory recommends. What makes a theory indirectly self-defeating has little to do with the object of choice, but with the nature of choosing itself. (shrink)

There is a difference between the direct and the indirect encountering of things. The emphasis in the history of phenomenology, as in the rest of modern philosophy, has been on direct encountering. But at least in industrialized societies, there is acquaintance with vastly more things through indirect encountering. A clarification of what encountering is in general will first be attempted, some traditional doctrines will be objected to, and then the difference between direct and indirect encountering will be (...) explored. The goal is a modest phenomenological investigation that invites the reader to verify, correct, and extend it. Terminology, genre, and the secondary emphasis on thetic or positional components of believing, valuing, and willing are central to the reflective analysis. (shrink)

This paper makes the following recommendation when it comes to the IogicaI form of sentences in indirect speech. Davidson’s paratactic account shouId stand, but with one emendation: the demonstrative ‘that’ should be taken to refer to the Fregean Thought expressed by the utterance of the content-sentence, rather than to that utterance itseIf. The argument for this emendation is that it is the onIy way of repIying to the objections to Davidson’s account raised by Schiffer, McFetridge and McDowell.Towards the end (...) of the paper, a view of Fregean Thoughts as utterance-types is defended; and the recommendation offered in the main body of the paper is distinguished from the simiIar account offered by Ian Rumfitt. (shrink)

By deliberately placing ethics under the category of communication, Kierkegaard intended to show that it is like no other science. He distinguished betweendirect communication and indirect communication. Direct communication concerns objectivity and knowledge; indirect communication, on the other hand, has to do with subjectivity (“becoming-subject”). In this paper, the author presents Kierkegaard’s philosophy of communication and ethics with special emphasis on his irony and pseudonymous authorship. He also examines the possibility of a discourse in business ethics, focusing on (...) the educational perspective. He discusses Kierkegaard’s aspects of communication—the communicator, the receiver, and the object—with particular reference to applied ethics. He argues that the Kierkegaardian notion of indirect communication can contribute to renewing business ethics teaching—which in his view is more art than science—in two important ways: (1) when the ethics teacher changes his position in the teacher/learner relationship; and (2) when the relationship between communicator/receiver is strengthened at the expense of the object. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an indirect argument for the Access Theory of privacy. First, I develop a new version of the rival Control Theory that is immune to all the classic objections against it. Second, I show that this new version of the Control Theory collapses into the Access Theory. I call the new version the ‘Negative Control Account’. Roughly speaking, the classic Control Theory holds that you have privacy if, and only if, you can control whether other (...) people know personal information about you. Critics of the Control Theory often give counterexamples, where privacy is either not diminished even though the claimant has lost control, or where privacy is diminished even though the claimant is in control. I argue that none of these alleged counterexamples work against the Negative Control Account. However, this is not a victory for the control theorist, because the Negative Control Account collapses into the Access Theory. The paper thus adds to the recent trend in the literature of favoring the Access Theory over the Control Theory. (shrink)

In this thesis, I will defend a new kind of compatibilist account of free action, indirect conscious control compatibilism (or indirect compatibilism for short), and argue that some of our actions are free according to it. My argument has three components, and involves the development of a brand new tool for experimental philosophy, and the use of cognitive neuroscience. The first component of the argument shows that compatibilism (of some kind) is a conceptual truth. Contrary to the current (...) orthodoxy in the free will literature, which is that our concept of free will is an incompatibilist concept - a concept according to which we have free will only if determinism is false - I will show that our concept of free will is in fact a compatibilist concept - a concept according to which we can have free will even if determinism is true - and I do so using a new experimental philosophy methodology inspired by two-dimensional semantics. -/- Of course, even if our concept of free will is a compatibilist concept, this does not mean that there are any free actions in the world: the current empirical evidence from the brain sciences appears to show that there might be no, or very few, free actions in the world, even on many compatibilist understandings of what it would take for there to be free will. The second component of the argument addresses this concern by extending our understanding of compatibilism. Agents act freely either when their actions are caused by compatibilistically acceptable psychological processes, or are indirectly caused by those same processes. Hence the name of my account: indirect compatibilism. -/- The final component of the argument defends my new account against some interesting objections and provides evidence from cognitive neuroscience that some of our actions count as free by the lights of indirect compatibilism. (shrink)

Summary This article presents and compares aspects of Charles Taylor's and Hans Blumenberg's seemingly opposing views about agency and epistemology, setting them in the context of the tradition in German ideas called ?philosophical anthropology?, with which both align their thinking. It presents key strands of this tradition, from their inception in the late eighteenth century in the writings of Herder, Schiller and others associated with anthropology to their articulation by thinkers such as Max Scheler, Arnold Gehlen and Karl Löwith in (...) the early twentieth century. The main issues here are: man's status as part of nature or as ?radically divorced? from nature; the possibility of objective knowledge of man versus the epistemological status of human ?meaning?; the view of knowledge as abstraction versus ?concrete? or ?lived? experience. Within these parameters the article contrasts Taylor's emphasis on ?engaged? agency, embedded in discourses, bodies and predispositions, with Blumenberg's sense of our ?indirect? relation to reality: ?delayed, selective, and above all ?metaphorical??. It concludes that each position may be traced back to a key strand in philosophical anthropology: the one emphasising man's unique freedom, the other that sees man's grasp of reality as uniquely interwoven with a background of meanings. (shrink)

The non‐identity problem is the problem of grounding moral wrongdoing in cases in which an action affects who will exist in the future. Consider a woman who intentionally conceives while on medication that is harmful for a fetus. If the resulting child is disabled as a result of the medication, what makes the woman's action morally wrong? I argue that an explanation in terms of harmful rights violations fails, and I focus on Peter Markie's recent rights‐based defense. Markie's analysis rests (...) on the notion of an indirect harm, and I show that the calculation of an indirect harm relies on an improper baseline for the determination of whether or not an action adversely affects a patient's interests. I also defend an impersonal duty‐based analysis of the wrongdoing in non‐identity cases against an objection by Markie. I close by arguing that the rights‐based analysis is insensitive to context and that context is morally relevant in the determination of the moral valence of actions in cases of non‐identity. This failure provides a pro tanto reason to favor an impersonal duty‐based analysis of the wrongdoing in non‐identity cases. (shrink)

Over the past decade, scholars, institutions, and activists have voiced strong concerns about the potential of automated decision systems to indirectly discriminate against vulnerable groups. This article analyses the ethics of algorithmic indirect discrimination, and argues that we can explain what is morally bad about such discrimination by reference to the fact that it causes harm. The article first sketches certain elements of the technical and conceptual background, including definitions of direct and indirect algorithmic differential treatment. It next (...) introduces three prominent accounts of fairness as potential explanations if the badness of algorithmic indirect discrimination, but argues that all three are vulnerable to powerful levelling-down-style objections. Instead, the article demonstrates how proper attention to the way differences in decision-scenarios affect the distribution of harms can help us account for intuitions in prominent cases. Finally, the article considers a potential objection based on the fact that certain forms of algorithmic indirect discrimination appear to distribute rather than cause harm, and notes that we can explain how such distributions cause harm by attending to differences in individual and group vulnerability. (shrink)

Our objectives in this article are to bring some theoretical order into developmental sequences and simultaneities in children’s ability to appreciate multiple labels for single objects, to reason with identity statements, to reason hypothetically, counterfactually, and with beliefs and desires, and to explain why an ‘implicit’ understanding of belief occurs before an ‘explicit’ understanding. The central idea behind our explanation is the emerging grasp of how objects of thought and desire relate to real objects and to each other. To capture (...) this idea we make use of the notion of discourse referents, as did Perner and Brandl (2005), to explain the developmental link between understanding beliefs and alternative naming. We present confirming evidence of the prediction from this analysis that children should have comparable problems with understanding identity statements. We explain the precociously correct answers in ‘implicit’ false belief tests based on indirect measures in the following way: From infancy children are able to keep track of other people’s experiences, to reason about counterfactual circumstances, and to reason about goal-directed (rational) action depending on given circumstances. Indirect tasks reduce the bias to use actual circumstances for reasoning about goal directed action compared to the traditional task, which leads to more correct answers. An emerging metarepresentational understanding helps overcome these biases and enables not only correct action prediction but also the explanation of erroneous actions. The common metarepresentational element explains why false belief tasks and the alternative naming task are mastered at the same time as children understand identity statements. (shrink)

Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) is a contemporary form of realism concerned with the investigation of “objects” broadly construed. It may be characterised in terms of a metaphysical pluralism to the extent that it recognises infinitely many different kinds of emergent entities, and this fact in turn leads to a number of questions concerning the nature of objects and emergence in OOO: what is the precise meaning of an emergent entity in OOO? How has emergence been denied throughout the history of (...) Western thought? Is there a specific object-oriented account of emergence? What is the causal mechanism which provides the conditions of possibility for the generation of emergent entities? In this article, I aim to answer all these questions by constructing the first extensive account of real emergence in the context of Object-Oriented Ontology, and I also seek to tie this analysis to the notion of “vicarious” or indirect causation. (shrink)

According to indirect duty views, human beings lack direct moral duties to non-human organisms, but our direct duties to ourselves and other humans give rise to indirect duties regarding non-humans. On the orthodox interpretation of Kant’s account of indirect duties, one should abstain from treating organisms in ways that render one more likely to violate direct duties to humans. This indirect duty view is subject to several damaging objections, such as that it misidentifies the moral reasons (...) we have to treat non-humans in certain ways and that it sanctions only weak obligations vis-à-vis organisms. I develop an alternative indirect duty view: given a direct duty to oneself to cultivate virtuous dispositions, one has an indirect duty to abstain from treating organisms in ways that erode one’s virtues or develop vices. I argue that this indirect duty view strictly proscribes knowingly causing unnecessary harm to organisms, and I show that it is not subject to the damaging objections directed against the indirect duty view attributed to Kant by the orthodox interpretation. This suggests that indirect duty views are more worthy of consideration than is often supposed. (shrink)

Why does Walter Benjamin claim “indirection” to be the proper method for philosophical contemplation and writing? Why is this method—embodied, according to Benjamin, in the convoluted form of scholastic treatises and in their use of citations—fundamental for understanding his Origin of German Trauerspiel as suggesting an alternative to most strands of modern philosophy? The explicit and well-studied function of this method is for the presentation of what cannot be represented in language, of what cannot be intended or approached in thinking. (...) Namely, of what Benjamin understands as “truth.” Indeed, as Adorno implied, providing a method for presenting an intentionless reality, rather than for re-presenting the world as corresponding to the mind, is revolutionary. However, I claim that beyond its presentational function, the method of indirection has a further, pedagogical function. Benjamin’s concept of truth requires thinking in a manner that does not impose any exterior form, any conceptual or intuitive intention on truth and the materials in which it might be exhibited. The methodological adoption of digressive and intermittent writing is supposed to transform the way we think, or more accurately, the position from which thinking occurs. By examining Benjamin’s use of pedagogical terms against the backdrop of scholastic history and the Urfigure of modern method, that of Descartes, I show that writing and reading in the form of the tractatus serves as exercise in receding from the subject-position—a position of a subject intending an object—and thus conditions the presentation of intentionless truth. (shrink)

This paper makes the following recommendation when it comes to the IogicaI form of sentences in indirect speech. Davidson’s paratactic account shouId stand, but with one emendation: the demonstrative ‘that’ should be taken to refer to the Fregean Thought expressed by the utterance of the content-sentence, rather than to that utterance itseIf. The argument for this emendation is that it is the onIy way of repIying to the objections to Davidson’s account raised by Schiffer, McFetridge and McDowell.Towards the end (...) of the paper, a view of Fregean Thoughts as utterance-types is defended; and the recommendation offered in the main body of the paper is distinguished from the simiIar account offered by Ian Rumfitt. (shrink)

In "An Inscriptional Approach to Indirect Quotation," Israel Scheffler presented an analysis of sentences of the form '... writes that ---'. He was primarily concerned to give a nominalistic analysis of indirect discourse which would elude certain objections offered by Church. Here the question is not whether the analysis eludes those criticisms. The question is whether the analysis is correct. I shall argue that it is not.

Some argue that robots could never be sentient, and thus could never have intrinsic moral status. Others disagree, believing that robots indeed will be sentient and thus will have moral status. But a third group thinks that, even if robots could never have moral status, we still have a strong moral reason to treat some robots as if they do. Drawing on a Kantian argument for indirect animal rights, a number of technology ethicists contend that our treatment of anthropomorphic (...) or even animal-like robots could condition our treatment of humans: treat these robots well, as we would treat humans, or else risk eroding good moral behavior toward humans. But then, this argument also seems to justify giving rights to robots, even if robots lack intrinsic moral status. In recent years, however, this indirect argument in support of robot rights has drawn a number of objections. In this paper I have three goals. First, I will formulate and explicate the Kant-inspired indirect argument meant to support robot rights, making clearer than before its empirical commitments and philosophical presuppositions. Second, I will defend the argument against a number of objections. The result is the fullest explication and defense to date of this well-known and influential but often criticized argument. Third, however, I myself will raise a new concern about the argument’s use as a justification for robot rights. This concern is answerable to some extent, but it cannot be dismissed fully. It shows that, surprisingly, the argument’s advocates have reason to resist, at least somewhat, producing the sorts of robots that, on their view, ought to receive rights. (shrink)

It is well known that Frege was an extensionalist, in the following sense: he held that the truth-value of a sentence is always a function only of the references of its parts. One consequence of this view is that expressions occurring in certain linguistic contexts – for example, the that-clauses of propositional attitude ascriptions – do not have their usual references, but refer instead to what are usually their senses. But although a number of philosophers have objected to this result, (...) no one has yet attempted to see what happens to Frege's views – and, in particular, to his theory of sense and reference – if his extensionalism is abandoned while his other views are maintained. This paper thus does two things. First, it clears the way for such an attempt, by arguing that recent defences of Frege's extensionalism – by Tyler Burge, Saul Kripke, Terence Parsons and Christopher Peacocke – fall short. Second, it sketches a positive proposal for a non-extensionalist application of Frege's theory of sense and reference to sentences of indirect discourse and ascriptions of propositional attitude. (shrink)

There is growing evidence to support the claim that we react differently to robots than we do to other objects. In particular, we react differently to robots with which we have some form of social interaction. In this paper I critically assess the claim that, due to our tendency to become emotionally attached to social robots, permitting their harm may be damaging for society and as such we should consider introducing legislation to grant social robots rights and protect them from (...) harm. I conclude that there is little evidence to support this claim and that legislation in this area would restrict progress in areas of social care where social robots are a potentially valuable resource. (shrink)

Indirect Nature and the Colors of the Invisible. Notes regarding Merleau-Ponty’s Ontological ProjectThis paper aims to meditate on the importance of the Notes de cours du Collège de France on the idea of “Nature” to the understanding of M. Merleau-Ponty ontological project. In particular, we would like to show that in these notes a Philosophy of Nature is drawn both in view of a necessary conception of Being that surpasses the ontology of the object, and in view of (...) a new philosophy of the incarnated perceiving body. In the center of this fertile tension we hope to contribute to a new way of understanding what Merleau-Ponty was still trying to do with his Le visible et l’invisible.La Natura indiretta e i colori dell’invisibile. Note sul progetto ontologico di Merleau-PontyLo scopo di questo articolo è di riflettere sull’importanza delle Lezioni al Collège de France sull’idea di “Natura” per la comprensione del progetto ontologico di M. Merleau-Ponty. In particolare, intendiamo mostrare come in queste lezioni sia tracciata una filosofia della natura in vista di una nuova concezione dell’Essere che superi l’ontologia dell’oggetto, ma anche di una nuova filosofia del corpo percipiente incarnato. Nella scia di questa fertile tensione, speriamo di poter contribuire ad una nuova comprensione di ciò che Merleau-Ponty stava cercando di fare con il suo Il visibile e l’invisibile. (shrink)

Belief states are only contingently connected with the objects of belief. Burge's examples show that the same belief state can be associated with different objects of belief. Kripke's puzzle shows that the same object of belief can be associated with different belief states. Nevertheless, belief states can best be characterized by a subset of the propositions one believes, namely those one directly or immediately believes. The rest of the things one believes are believed indirectly, by virtue of one's direct (...) beliefs. This distinction sheds light on Kripke's puzzle, the problem of the contingent a priori, and the problem of logical omniscience. (shrink)

Two claims are essential to foundationalist theories of knowledge. First, that there are directly evident propositions; secondly, that, in justifying a particular knowledge claim, one ultimately arrives at a directly evident proposition making another proposition evident. In this dissertation, both claims are being defended. ;In defense of the first claim, a week definition of a proposition's being directly evident is suggested. Any attack against foundationalism rejecting the first claim must show that there are no contingent directly evident propositions in the (...) sense of this definition. According to the thesis of privileged access, what a man believes about his mental states is directly evident, or, according to different versions of this thesis, self-presenting, infallible, self-evident, indubitable, or incorrigible. Rejecting a number of objections to it, the thesis of privileged access in all of its versions is being defended. In defense of the second claim, an account of prima facie evidence is set forth, incorporating definitions of the concepts "e tends to make h evident," "i defeats the evidence e provides for h," and "e makes h prima facie evident for S." It is claimed that, if a proposition p is made prima facie evident for a person S, then there is no ground on which it is reasonable for S to doubt that p is true. ;Furthermore, two epistemic principles are being offered. The first lays down the conditions under which evidence is generated, asserting that evidence is generated in virtue of a person's being in a psychological state. The second lays down the conditions under which evidence is transmitted from a directly to an indirectly evident proposition, asserting that evidence is transmitted from a directly to an indirectly evident proposition if the former bears to the latter the relation of "e making h prima facie evident.". (shrink)

The object of the present discussion is to show that the analysis of indirect discourse obtained when the concept of assertion is construed as a relationship that obtains between the asserting person and the asserted proposition—along the familiar lines proposed by Church [3, 4]—is entirely adequate of itself to circumvent the semantical paradoxes in which indirect discourse is involved.

While direct proof is widely considered the paradigm of the acquisition of knowledge by deductive means, indirect proof has traditionally been criticized as showing merely ‘that’ its conclusion is true and not ‘why’ it is true. This paper accounts for the traditional objection by emphasizing the argumentative role in indirect proof of logical principles such as excluded middle and non-contradiction.

I defend a contextualist account of bare epistemic modal claims against recent objections. I argue that in uttering a sentence of the form ‘It might be that p,’ a speaker is performing two speech acts. First, she is (directly) asserting that in view of the knowledge possessed by some relevant group, it might be that p. The content of this first speech act is accounted for by the contextualist view. But the speaker's utterance also generates an indirect speech act (...) that consists in a weak suggestive that p. Since this second speech act is typically the main point of a bare epistemic modal utterance, our (negative or positive) responses to the utterance actually target this second speech act. I show how this two-speech-act account can explain the data recently adduced against contextualism. (shrink)

The fact that causal laws in the social sciences are most realistically expressed as both multivariate and stochastic has a number of very important implications for indirect measurement and generalizability. It becomes difficult to link theoretical definitions of general constructs in a one-to-one relationship to research operations, with the result that there is conceptual slippage in both experimental and nonexperimental research. It is argued that problems of this nature can be approached by developing specific multivariate causal models that incorporate (...) sources of measurement bias, along with the theoretical variables of interest. Many general concepts are defined in such a way that causal assumptions are built into the definitions themselves. Additionally, in any given piece of research it is necessary to omit many variables from consideration, and this is often done without careful consideration of the assumptions required to justify such omissions. Finally, generalization to more inclusive populations or a diversity of settings ordinarily requires one to replace constants by variables. It is concluded that the criteria of parsimony, generalizability, and precision are incompatible, given the multivariate nature of social causation, and the author expresses his own preference for sacrificing parsimony in favor of the objectives of achieving increased precision and generalizability of social science laws. (shrink)

In this chapter, I am going to discuss a very interesting case brought to our attention by Saul and references therein: NP-related substitution failure in simple sentences. Whereas it is well known that opacity occurs in intensional contexts and that in such contexts it is not licit to replace an NP with a co-referential one, one would not expect that substitution failure should also be exhibited by simple sentences in the context of stories about Superman. The suggested explanation of these (...) cases is to posit an embedding explicature, that is to say the insertion of structure that ipso facto creates an intensional context capable of blocking substitution. I consider various complications to this story in the light of important objections by García-Carpintero and, finally, I consider how this story fares when one applies constraints on explicatures along the lines of those proposed by Hall in an interesting paper.In general, this chapter exploits interesting considerations by Norrick on the structural similarities between stories and indirect reports. Norrick believes there are important differences, but he is inclined to concede that we could study structural similarities. An important similarity, brought out by the examples discussed by Saul, is that the narrative frame, once it is inserted into the interaction, can be left implicit and, during the act of narrating or referring to the story, one need not repeat the words ‘the story says’ or ‘we are told that…’ every time. Although implicit, these words are heard because they do some work at the structural level, as is shown by this attempt to resolve an otherwise intractable philosophical problem. The explicatures of simple sentences are perceived because they are integrated into the speakers’/hearers’ perception of the overall plan of discourse, as Haugh most interestingly notes:As Haugh and Jaszczolt note, this means that any putative “communicative intention of A is embedded within his higher-order intention”. In other words, to figure out the implicature that evidently arises here, the participants are necessarily making inferences about some kind of overall aim. According to this view, then, inferences about the intended implicature arise concomitant with inferences about the overall aim of the speaker.It follows from the considerations by Haugh that, since the explicature connected with simple sentences depends on the perception of the overall aim or plan of the conversation, it is not easily cancelled. Readers can check by themselves that the explicatures due to simple sentences cannot be cancelled, as cancelling them would involve returning to illogical discourses.. Haugh’s considerations about the overall aim of the discourse are precious in explaining how the embedding explicatures I posit are calculated once and for all for the whole stretch of the discourse framed by the narrative act. (shrink)

Indirect Nature and the Colors of the Invisible. Notes regarding Merleau-Ponty’s Ontological ProjectThis paper aims to meditate on the importance of the Notes de cours du Collège de France on the idea of “Nature” to the understanding of M. Merleau-Ponty ontological project. In particular, we would like to show that in these notes a Philosophy of Nature is drawn both in view of a necessary conception of Being that surpasses the ontology of the object, and in view of (...) a new philosophy of the incarnated perceiving body. In the center of this fertile tension we hope to contribute to a new way of understanding what Merleau-Ponty was still trying to do with his Le visible et l’invisible.La Natura indiretta e i colori dell’invisibile. Note sul progetto ontologico di Merleau-PontyLo scopo di questo articolo è di riflettere sull’importanza delle Lezioni al Collège de France sull’idea di “Natura” per la comprensione del progetto ontologico di M. Merleau-Ponty. In particolare, intendiamo mostrare come in queste lezioni sia tracciata una filosofia della natura in vista di una nuova concezione dell’Essere che superi l’ontologia dell’oggetto, ma anche di una nuova filosofia del corpo percipiente incarnato. Nella scia di questa fertile tensione, speriamo di poter contribuire ad una nuova comprensione di ciò che Merleau-Ponty stava cercando di fare con il suo Il visibile e l’invisibile. (shrink)

There is a strong intuition that we can listen to works of music, yet musical ontologies on which works of music are abstract objects, perhaps most notably, type theories of music, seem to imply that this is impossible. This problem has received relatively little attention in the literature. I here explore and develop a solution suggested by Julian Dodd and argue that it has at least two problematic consequences, namely (i) that some works of music cannot be listened to unless (...) one has already studied the relevant score or through a similar process learned roughly what the work requires of its performances and (ii) that it is possible for two people to listen to different musical works while listening to the same performance. (shrink)

While the idea of art as self-expression can sound old-fashioned, it remains widespread—especially if the relevant ‘selves’ can be social collectives, not just individual artists. But self-expression can collapse into individualistic or anthropocentric self-involvement. And compelling successor ideals for artists are not obvious. In this light, I develop a counter-ideal of creative receptivity to basic features of the external world, or artistic objectivity. Objective artists are not trying to express themselves or reach collective self-knowledge. However, they are also not disinterested (...) or emotionless. They can be unmoved by personal feelings and human concerns, but they are still receptive—just attuned to the more elemental forces that creatively inspire them. I elaborate this ideal in dialogue with John Ruskin’s influential critique of the pathetic fallacy. By contextualizing Ruskin’s view vis-à-vis Romantic and Modernist poetics, post-Kantian aesthetics, modern environmental art, and contemporary theories of expressiveness, I show how it indirectly motivates my account. (shrink)

The fact that causal laws in the social sciences are most realistically expressed as both multivariate and stochastic has a number of very important implications for indirect measurement and generalizability. It becomes difficult to link theoretical definitions of general constructs in a one-to-one relationship to research operations, with the result that there is conceptual slippage in both experimental and nonexperimental research. It is argued that problems of this nature can be approached by developing specific multivariate causal models that incorporate (...) sources of measurement bias, along with the theoretical variables of interest. Many general concepts are defined in such a way that causal assumptions are built into the definitions themselves. Additionally, in any given piece of research it is necessary to omit many variables from consideration, and this is often done without careful consideration of the assumptions required to justify such omissions. Finally, generalization to more inclusive populations or a diversity of settings ordinarily requires one to replace "constants" by variables. It is concluded that the criteria of parsimony, generalizability, and precision are incompatible, given the multivariate nature of social causation, and the author expresses his own preference for sacrificing parsimony in favor of the objectives of achieving increased precision and generalizability of social science laws. (shrink)

Consumer indirect misbehavior in access-based consumption is a significant challenge for enterprises. The literature is in short of a deep understanding of the antecedent conditions of consumer indirect misbehavior in this context and limited by inconsistent findings, calling for developing a holistic and integrative theoretical framework. This study integrates three commonly used theoretical perspectives in the consumer misbehavior literature to present holistic archetypes of consumer indirect misbehavior formation. In accordance with this theoretical objective, we adopted an emerging (...) approach for configurational analysis, i.e., fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, to analyze the complex combinations of six influencing factors. We collected data using a scenario-based field survey of 264 experienced consumers of a popular bike-sharing service in China. The scenarios were developed based on relevant literature and a Delphi study. The fsQCA results reveal multiple configurations for high and low levels of consumer misbehavior intention. Specifically, perceived benefits and moral definition play important roles, while the effect of sanctions is highly dependent on other factors. These results lead us to derive three theoretical propositions for antecedent conditions leading to consumers’ indirect misbehavior intentions in access-based consumption. This study enriches our understanding of the causes of misbehavior and provides novel insights for management practitioners to take appropriate countermeasures. (shrink)

Direct versus Indirect Realism: A Neurophilosophical Debate on Consciousness brings together leading neuroscientists and philosophers to explain and defend their theories on consciousness. The book offers a one-of-a-kind look at the radically opposing theories concerning the nature of the objects of immediate perception-whether these are distal physical objects or phenomenal experiences in the conscious mind. Each side-neuroscientists and philosophers-offers accessible, comprehensive explanations of their points-of-view, with each side also providing a response to the other that offers a unique approach (...) on opposing positions. It is the only book available that combines thorough discussion of the arguments behind both direct and indirect realism in a single resource, and is required reading for neuroscientists, neurophilosophers, cognitive scientists and anyone interested in conscious perception and the mind-brain connection. Combines discussion of both direct realism and indirect realism in a single, accessible resource Provides a thorough, well-rounded understanding of not only the opposing views of neuroscientists and philosophers on the nature of conscious perception, but also insight into why the opposition persists Offers a unique "dialog" approach, with neuroscientists and philosophers providing responses and rebuttals to one another's contributions. (shrink)

The representation of history continues to evolve in the domain of museum exhibitions. This evolution is informed in part by the creation of new display methods—many of which depart from the traditional conventions used to achieve the “museum effect”—in part by an increased attention to the museum–visitor relationship. In this context the ethical force of bearing witness, at times a crucial aspect of the museum experience, has emerged as a particularly compelling issue. In seeking to represent and address atrocity, injustice, (...) and the abrogation of human rights, museums have the potential to become “sites of conscience” and to encourage “historical consciousness.” Through a series of three exhibitions devoted to slavery, the New-York Historical Society demonstrated how such sites can be constructed and how objects can be deployed to represent extreme or “limit cases.” In this review/essay I investigate and interrogate these exhibitions, looking closely at the use of objects as a source of “indirect testimony” and at the “dialogical situation” that might arise in an encounter among objects, exhibit narratives, and visitors. Thinking in terms of point of view, I look at the variety of rhetorical platforms from which objects speak in these exhibitions; thinking in terms of syntax, I look at the effects of ordering and of the radical juxtaposition of objects; thinking in terms of irony, I look at the provocations of double-voiced narratives and at how objects are used to support those historical sentences. (shrink)

The problem of reconciling the philosophical denial of ontological vagueness with common-sense beliefs positing vague objects, properties and relations is addressed. This project arises for any view denying ontological vagueness but is especially pressing for transvaluationism, which claims that ontological vagueness is impossible. The idea that truth, for vague discourse and vague thought-content, is an indirect form of language-thought correspondence is invoked and applied. It is pointed out that supervaluationism provides one way, but not necessarily the only way, of (...) implementing the idea of indirect correspondence. (shrink)