In their reviews, Chater and Oaksford, Dutilh Novaes, and Sterelny are critical of our modularist approach to reason. In this response, we clarify our claim that reason is one of many cognitive modules that produce intuitive inferences each in its domain; the reason module producing intuitions about reasons. We argue that in‐principle objections to the idea of massive modularity based on Fodor's peculiar approach are not effective against other interpretations that have led to insightful uses of the notion in psychology (...) and biology. We explain how the reason module evaluates reasons on the basis of their metacognitive properties. We show how the module fulfils a social function, that of producing reasons to justify oneself and convince others and of evaluating the reasons others produce to convince us. (shrink)

My purpose in this article is to provide a reconstruction of the mechanics of philosophical analysis that Wittgenstein carried out in “On Certainty”. I will show that this analysis is based, specifically, on an appeal to a wide propositional typology that serves to evaluate and diagnose Moore’s propositions. To this end, I shall first explain how common readings of the methodological issues in “On Certainty” fail. Secondly, I focus on the mechanics of analysis found in paragraphs 1-65, specifically the analysis (...) of three sentences: “There are physical objects”, “I know that there is a hand here” and “here the mistake is impossible”. Thirdly, I proceed to identify different stages of the method and justify in what sense the strategic core of such research is the table of propositional typologies. (shrink)

From its very inception philosophy has been preoccupied with death, so much so that many philosophers have received the reputation of being somber, melancholic, and morbid in nature. By continuously reflecting on the meaning and nature of death, philosophers have seemingly been shrouded in darkness to such an extent that their contemporaries considered them to be dead long before they met their own demise. While this image of the moribund philosopher can certainly be questioned, the fact remains that many philosophers, (...) and then especially the ancient ones, have insisted that there is an essential relation between philosophical thought and death. A life dedicated to philosophy would, it seems, at the same time imply a life lived in the shadow of death. (shrink)

‘Dialectic’ or ‘dialectics’ has been defined as the ‘art of investigating the truth of opinions, testing of truth by discussion’. What can usefully be said about the art of investigating or testing the truth of religious opinions by discussion?

The Nature of Aesthetic Value proposes that aesthetic goodness, the property in virtue of which works of art are valuable, is a matter of their capacity in appropriate circumstances to give satisfaction. It inquires into the nature of this satisfaction, arguing that it consists of the extension and clarification of consciousness. This provides a basis for treatment of the ancient problem of the relation between cultivation of the arts and the pursuit and maintenance of the true and the good. The (...) book summarizes critics' judgments and arguments on literature, the visual arts, and music, testing the author's theory about the nature of aesthetic opinion. (shrink)