Theories of meaning developed within the analytic tradition, starting with Gottlob Frege, and within continental philosophy, starting with Husserl, can be distinguished by their disagreement about the phenomenon of collapse or failure of meaning. Our text focuses on Frege’s legacy, taken up by Rudolph Carnap, which culminated in a view of the collapse of meaning defined first by a purely syntactic conception of categorial error and second, when Tarski entered the scene, by the paradoxes created by the conflict between the (...) use of the predicate truth and the concept of proof. As positivism’s conventionalism and late model-theoretic semantics became the paradigms derived from this position, the result, in our view, was a conception of meaning success and meaning failure dominated by dependence on a technological conception. We will argue that this dependence leads to the inability to evaluate the breaks in rational parameters and crises of meaning addressed by the phenomenological and transcendental perspectives. Husserl’s critique of logic as technology is the basis for the reflexive standpoint on the phenomena of meaning failure that leads to a theoretical and eidetic ideal approach to that phenomenon. It is then suggested that this phenomenological reflective standpoint on the problem of meaning failure is the origin of the doors that lead to the divergent paths between the analytic and continental traditions. Thus, this is an article with three argumentative phases connected into a larger unity. The first phase presents Husserl’s critique of a purely extensional, syntactic, and recursive conception of logical consequence and the concept of truth; the second presents Hussel’s larger conception of meaning-failure; the third—presented in an appendix— presents a lesson on the division between continental and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Certainty The following article provides an overview of the philosophical debate surrounding certainty. It does so in light of distinctions that can be drawn between objective, psychological, and epistemic certainty. Certainty consists of a valuable cognitive standing, which is often seen as an ideal. It is indeed natural to evaluate lesser cognitive standings, in particular … Continue reading Certainty →.

It is widely held that assertions are partially governed by an epistemic norm. But what is the epistemic condition set out in the norm? Is it knowledge, truth, belief, or something else? In this paper, I defend a view similar to that of Stanley (2008), according to which the relevant epistemic condition is epistemic certainty, where epistemic certainty (but not knowledge) is context-sensitive. I start by distinguishing epistemic certainty, subjective certainty, and knowledge. Then, I explain why it's much more plausible (...) to think that "certain", rather than "know", is context-sensitive. After that, I respond to an important worry raised by Pritchard, according to which the proposed view is too strong to accommodate our current practice of assertion. I then show that the main linguistic and conversational data advanced in the recent literature in favour of the knowledge condition are best explained by the certainty view. Finally, I offer two principled considerations: the certainty view is the only one compatible with three independently plausible claims and it fits very well with the common thought that knowledge does not entail certainty. (shrink)

Is knowledge the epistemic norm of action and assertion? Gettier and justified-false-belief cases have been raised as counterexamples to the necessity direction of that claim. Most knowledge normers reply by distinguishing permissibility from excusability. An important objection to this move, however, is that it requires a still lacking view of epistemic excuses sufficiently general to cover all the cases, correctly relating the supposed excuse to the subject's cognitive life, and not collapsing into an account of the fundamental normative standard (see (...) Gerken 2017). In this paper, I rely on independent work in epistemology and cognitive science to suggest a novel account of epistemic excuses in terms of epistemic feelings. In contrast to other existing accounts, this account is immune from the above objection and can thus be used to rescue the knowledge norm. (shrink)

According to a widely discussed view, knowledge plays a significant normative role in action: It is epistemically rational to treat p as your reason for action if and only if you know that p. As many philosophers have observed, however, this view clashes with the claim that knowledge is moderate and stable. For, granting that claim, there will be high stakes cases in which knowledge seems insufficient. To deal with such cases, some philosophers embracing the knowledge norm combine three independently (...) plausible claims. First, they say that no non-trivial condition is luminous; second, they say that doing something while not being in a position to know that that is appropriate is bad (in high stakes cases); third, they say that in the high stakes cases in question, the subject knows but fails to be in a position to know that she knows (Williamson Philos Q 55:213–235, 2005). This paper argues that this account can overcome the main objections already raised in the literature, but that it still faces the apparently insurmountable challenge of providing a natural and helpful way of substantiating the second claim. (shrink)

Among the main reactions to scepticism, fallibilism is certainly the most popular nowadays. However, fallibilism faces a very strong and well-known objection. It has to grant that concessive knowledge attributions—assertions of the form “I know that p but it might be that not p”—can be true. Yet, these assertions plainly sound incoherent. Fallibilists have proposed to explain this incoherence pragmatically. The main proponents of this approach appeal to Gricean implicatures (Rysiew in Noûs 35(4):477514, 2001; Dougherty and Rysiew in Philos Phenomenol (...) Res 78(1):123132, 2009; Dougherty and Rysiew in Synthese 181(3):395403, 2011). Very recently, some philosophers have observed that fallibilists can also explain this apparent incoherence pragmatically if they embrace a (context-sensitive) certainty norm for assertion (Petersen in Synthese 196(11):4691–4710, 2019; Beddor in Philos Impr 20(8), 2020; Vollet in Dialectica 74:3, 2020). In this paper, I argue for the superiority of this latter explanation over its older rivals. (shrink)

A certain number of cases suggest that our willingness to ascribe “knowledge” can be influenced by practical factors. For revisionary proposals, they indicate that the truth‐values of “knowledge” ascriptions vary with practical factors. For conservative proposals, on the contrary, nothing surprising is happening. Standard pragmatic approaches appeal to pragmatic implicatures and psychological approaches to the idea that belief formation is influenced by practical factors. Conservative proposals have not yet offered a fully satisfactory explanation, though. In this article, I introduce and (...) defend a third conservative proposal which I call “Refined Invariantism”. The two main claims of this proposal are that (1) we should distinguish between high stakes cases in which the subject does not believe (that he knows) the target proposition and those in which he believes (that he knows) the target proposition and that (2) we should adopt a psychological treatment for the first kind of case and a pragmatic treatment based on the epistemic standards for appropriate assertion and action for the second kind of case. I argue that this new combined approach avoids the main pitfalls of its two conservative rivals and that it gives new life to the generality objection levelled against revisionary views. (shrink)

The traditional view in epistemology has it that knowledge is insensitive to the practical stakes. More recently, some philosophers have argued that knowledge is sufficient for rational action: if you know p, then p is a reason you have (epistemically speaking). Many epistemologists contend that these two claims stand in tension with one another. In support of this, they ask us to start with a low stakes case where, intuitively, a subject knows that p and appropriately acts on p. Then, (...) they ask us to consider a high stakes version of the case where, intuitively, this subject does not know that p and could not appropriately act on p without double-checking. Finally, they suggest that the best explanation for our shifty intuitions is that p is a reason the subject has in the low stakes case but not in the high stakes case. In short, according to this explanation, having a reason (in the epistemic sense) is sensitive to the stakes. If so, either knowledge is sensitive to the stakes or else you can know that p even if p is not a reason you have (in the epistemic sense). In this paper, I consider more closely the relation between having a reason (in the epistemic sense) and having a reason to check. I argue that the supposition that if one has p as a reason (in the epistemic sense) then one has a reason not to check whether p, or no reason to check whether p, is highly doubtful. On the contrary, I suggest, it is plausible that, given our fallibility, one always has an epistemic reason to check whether p, whether or not p is a reason one has (in the epistemic sense). On the basis of this observation, I show that one can offer a new way of explaining the cases in question, allowing us to reconcile the traditional view about knowledge and the sufficiency of knowledge for rational action. (shrink)

During the last 20 years, knowledge-centered approaches have become increasingly popular in analytic epistemology. Rather than trying to account for knowledge in other terms, these approaches take knowledge as the starting point for the elucidation of other epistemic notions (such as belief, justification, rationality, etc.). Knowledge-centered approaches have been so influential that it now looks like epistemology is undergoing a factive turn. However, relatively little has been done to explore how knowledge-centered views fare in new fields inside and beyond epistemology (...) strictly understood. This volume aims at remedying this situation by putting together contributions that investigate the significance of knowledge in debates where its roles have been less explored. The goal is to see how far knowledge-centered views can go by exploring new prospects and identifying new trends of research for the knowledge-first program. Extending knowledge-centered approaches in this way not only promises to deliver novel insights in these neglected fields, but also to revisit more traditional debates from a fresh perspective. As a whole, the volume develops and evaluates the knowledge-first program in original and fertile ways. (shrink)

Many philosophers agree that there is an epistemic norm governing action. However, they disagree on what this norm is. It has been observed that the word ‘know’ is prominent in ordinary epistemic evaluations of actions. Any opponent of the knowledge norm must provide an explanation of this fact. Gerken has recently proposed the most developed explanation. It invokes the hypothesis that, in normal contexts, knowledge-level warrant is frequently necessary and very frequently sufficient (Normal Coincidence), so that knowledge-based assessments would be (...) a good heuristic for practical reasoning and epistemic evaluations of action. In this paper, I raise three problems for this approach. First, I argue that Normal Coincidence is ad hoc: it relies on an unsupported frequency hypothesis that we should expect to be false given the warrant account that Gerken also endorses. Second, I argue that, in any case, Normal Coincidence is insufficient to support the hypothesis that knowledge-based evaluation of action constitutes a good heuristic. Third, I consider three other hypotheses close to Normal Coincidence apparently more likely to support the heuristic hypothesis, but I argue that they seem even more ad hoc than Normal Coincidence. (shrink)

A certain number of philosophers are attracted to the idea that knowledge is the epistemic norm of practical reasoning in the sense that it is epistemically appropriate to rely on p in one’s practical reasoning if and only if one knows that p. A well-known objection to the sufficiency direction of that claim is that there are cases in which a subject supposedly knows that p and yet should not rely on p. In light of the distinction between sufficient and (...) insufficient reasons, some philosophers contend that these cases are inconclusive. In this paper, I argue that this insufficient reason manoeuvre is defective because it either misconstrues the relevant cases or is at odds with strong intuitions about how we (should) reason. I then put forward further considerations relative to the instability of some pieces of reasoning and show how they can be explained by a certainty norm for practical reasoning. (shrink)

Many philosophers agree that there is an epistemic norm governing action. However, they disagree on what this norm is. It has been observed that the word ‘know’ is prominent in ordinary epistemic evaluations of actions. Any opponent of the knowledge norm must provide an explanation of this fact. Gerken has recently proposed the most developed explanation. It invokes the hypothesis that, in normal contexts, knowledge-level warrant is frequently necessary and very frequently sufficient (Normal Coincidence), so that knowledge-based assessments would be (...) a good heuristic for practical reasoning and epistemic evaluations of action. In this paper, I raise three problems for this approach. First, I argue that Normal Coincidence is ad hoc: it relies on an unsupported frequency hypothesis that we should expect to be false given the warrant account that Gerken also endorses. Second, I argue that, in any case, Normal Coincidence is insufficient to support the hypothesis that knowledge-based evaluation of action constitutes a good heuristic. Third, I consider three other hypotheses close to Normal Coincidence apparently more likely to support the heuristic hypothesis, but I argue that they seem even more ad hoc than Normal Coincidence. (shrink)

Pascal Engel défend explicitement le purisme (ou l’intellectualisme). Selon la version générale de cette thèse, les facteurs qui déterminent si une croyance est justifiée, ou si elle est une connaissance, ne concernent que la vérité. Ils sont totalement indépendants des désirs ou des préférences du sujet, ainsi que des conséquences pratiques potentielles du fait de posséder ces croyances. Dans son article « Pragmatic Encroachment and Epistemic Value » (2009), P. Engel concède que des facteurs pratiques peuvent déterminer la quantité de (...) données (ou la justification) dont on a besoin pour savoir ou croire, tout en maintenant que cela n’affecte pas le purisme épistémique (dans sa version évidentialiste) sur les notions de donnée ou de degré de justification. Mais cela ne revient-il pas tout simplement à concéder l’impurisme épistémique au moins à propos de la connaissance ou de la justification simpliciter des croyances ? Dans cet article, j’examine en détails la position de P. Engel. Je montre que, correctement comprise, elle est intégralement puriste. En considérant le principe connaissance-action, je soulève néanmoins un dilemme pour son approche, jetant ainsi un doute sur le potentiel qu’elle aurait à fournir une réponse puriste satisfaisante à l’argument fondamental motivant l’impurisme épistémique. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo será discutir as semelhanças e analogias entre os escritos de Schopenhauer compilados sob o nome de A arte de escrever, e a consagrada dedução transcendental das categorias na Crítica da Razão Pura de Kant.

As it stands, Frege’s semantic theory does not provide sufficient general keys for interpreting assertible sentences at different levels of complexity, such as (a) counterfactual-modal-intensional sentences and (b) extensional sentences. It is possible to devise that general key by adding non-classical parameters such as possible worlds, which allow sentences with a high degree of non-extensional complexity to occupy a trivial place in Tarski’s hierarchy as T-scheme-eligible substitutes. The paper argues that finding these non-false (if true) conditions under which complex propositions (...) can be trivially treated as eligible T-scheme substitutes is not trivial. It is a challenge that requires several consistency improvements to deal with various competing extensions of the predicate “true”. We will conclude that Frege-Tarski’s semantic conception (enriched by non- classical presuppositions), misrepresents that challenge. It distorts the problem we face in daily practice to strengthen our assertion systems, plan successful assertion strategies, and protect our assertions from semantic value reversals. The true challenge for us is pragmatic and cannot confuse (1) complicated scientific and empirical conditions of assertiveness with (2) the rewardable scoring-conditions under which one learns to use sentences in his native language. (shrink)

A neo-Kantian debate within analytic philosophy, in our reading, would evaluate thevalue of the following question: how the codification of the elements of a representation creates spaces of identification to theorize the possibilities oftruth, in two fields, the analytical and in the synthetic? In the analytic, the theory involves theability to conceptually interpret relations of possibility and impossibility; in the synthetic, thetheory involves the extra-conceptual supplementation of the alignment with the verifiers,providing a measure to encode the semantic contribution of both (...) experience simpliciter andexperience with concepts, made by schemas, analogical systems, etc. We suggest revitalizingthe theory of a priori syntheses, dialoguing with Kantian aspects of Husserl’s SixthInvestigation and confronting the orthodox semantics of empiricist inspiration.Although, in large part, a theory of judgments is equivalent to a dynamic production of models,simplifications and analogies, the focus on the production of synthetic and a priori judgmentspresents some independent problems, which, in our reading, would enrich the universe ofanalytic philosophy and would facilitate the reading of the development of the pragmatic shiftphase, which took place in the second half of the 20th century.Keywords: synthesis a priori; semantics; pragmatism. (shrink)

Nosso artigo irá avaliar a contribuição de uma teoria intensional para projetos de filosofia da ciência. Esperamos explorar o conceito de intensão, que fez parte da polêmica semântica do século XX, para discutir a natureza dos enunciados da ciência e suas diferenças de profundidade. Optamos por dar a seguinte forma à argumentação: almejamos apresentar indícios para a plausibilidade da tese de que as intensões contribuem para marcar diferenças de conteúdo preditivo das proposições. Argumentaremos que essas diferenças falham em ser avaliadas (...) extensionalmente. Sugerimos explorar a diferença entre intensões carnapianas (Carnap 1891-1970) e millianas (Stuart Mill 1806-1873). A linha de contraste será traçada a partir dos problemas para os quais os autores elaboraram seu conceito: as primeiras para ampliar o universo extensional da interpretação com casos possíveis mapeados por um modelo (as quais chamaremos de extensionalidade estendida), e as segundas para resolver problemas de profundidade teórica, entendidos como questões de projeção e predição. A sequência do artigo avalia o desafio de Quine à concepção carnapiana de intensão, e explora a seguinte opção: a de que uma versão profunda (milliana) do conceito de intensão e analiticidade não seria alvo da crítica de Quine. Passamos, por fim, por um exame de possíveis alinhamentos e alianças com o racionalismo crítico recente (David Miller, J. Watkins), para concluir que o universo da filosofia da ciência está aberto a discutir a contribuição de uma noção não-extensional de significação. (shrink)

Resumen: Comparada con la economía de hoy, la de la Grecia antigua -por lo menos en una de sus concepciones- era una economía limitada. Exteriormente, porque en Hesíodo sirve para el sustento de la casa, y en Aristóteles para el sustento de la ciudad; interiormente y de manera sistemática, en el pri..

This short paper focuses on Kripke's paper on truth from 1975. It is 1. a historiographical commentary, 2. an argument about the advantages of the theory, and 3. an interpretation of its philosophical meaning. 1. Kripke presents a diagnosis of semantic paradoxes based on their similarity with ungrounded sentences. Based on Kleene's three-value logic, he then shows that it is possible to find fixed points in which the assertion of an unsubstantiated (non-paradoxical) sentence can sustain a cumulative distance with its (...) anti-extension. 2. We argue that Kripke's paper has the advantage of explaining risk in truth assessments. It provides a framework to solve problems of languages that have their truth predicate. Although compatible with Tarski's, this solution more faithfully paints the speculative and revisionist representation of assignments of truth. It exhibits the conditions of stable risk assertions (whose fixed point accumulates semantic value in a single direction) and distinguishes it from irrational assertions, which, as dogmas, base their risk on arbitrary points and provide an unstable basis for truth assertions. (shrink)

No artigo a seguir, exploramos a leitura de Kripke do argumento da linguagem privada. Nossa leitura afirma a seguinte linha de pensamento: o paradoxo cético sobre as regras que Kripke acreditava ter rastreado neste argumento se conecta com a velha questão cética da modernidade, e dá à obra de Wittgenstein um distanciamento reflexivo para pensar sobre as condições em que um quebra-cabeça semântico pode ser resolvido. Argumentaremos que a resposta envolve uma mudança pragmática que termina definitivamente as ligações de Wittgenstein (...) com o problema da "proposição" e o substitui por outro. Nossa visão é a de que a reflexão de Wittgenstein sobre os jogos de linguagem propõe um substituto pragmático para "proposições" que possa proteger a consistência das regras na predição do significado e das condições de verdade. O curso reflexivo do artigo passará pela filosofia da linguagem de Gilbert Ryle e seu conceito de erros categoriais. Finalmente, mostraremos solidariedade com a interpretação de Robert Brandon de Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Deleuze explica el cine a partir de dos nociones claves: imagen-movimiento e imagen-tiempo. Con las dos, quiere a grosso modo explicar el cine hasta la Segunda Guerra Mundial como un cine que se concentra en acción y movimiento, a diferencia del cine de Posguerra, que se ha vuelto reflexivo y pivilegia la presencia del tiempo. Deleuze afirma que ha tomado ambos conceptos de Bergson, y especialmente de su obra Materia y memoria. Este artículo explicará brevemente algunos rasgos fundamentales de estas (...) nociones en Deleuze, después abordará a Bergson para ver en qué sentido él era creador de estas nociones y, finalmente, regresará a Deleuze para precisar las nociones en cuestión y sus alcances en la explicación del cine. (shrink)

Kant's theory of judgment involves his answer to the question "How is knowledge of the pattern underlying intentional strategies of objective - true and justified - representation of empirical events possible?" When we problematize this question, the problem of the scope of our notion of consistency in empirical reasoning emerges. We will argue in this article that Kant's theory includes a thesis about the circular nature of our patterns of consistency, based on the ability to protect the conceptual presuppositions that (...) harmonize knowledge of truth as opposed to falsity in any paradigm of theoretical reflection. This thesis allows Kant to develop a foundationalism about the knowledge of the content of judgments (the ability to recognize conceptual correctness or rule consistency) without committing to a static and transcendent view of the ideal object of our assertion strategies. In our view, this view is still one of the most competitive in describing the necessary - though not static - status of the propositions of empirical science. (shrink)

The division of the problems about Meaning in an extensional and an intensional theory was accused of unnecessarily duplicating the theoretical problems involved in the knowledge of Meaning. The result was either 1. an aggressive rejection of the intensional part of the problem or 2. the adoption of non-classical semantics to account for intensions. This paper suggests a reading of Frege's theory of Meaning that preserves the contribution of the intensional aspect of the question without sacrificing the benefits of the (...) classical insights. For this, however, we need to expand his theory to cases of semantic values which are not directly assertive, that is, what Micheal Dummett called ingredient value. This solution preserves the direct and intuitive insights of classical semantics, expanding it to cases where the designation of truth or falsehood does not have a unified interpretation: speculative, modal, ambiguous, relative cases or cases in which theories disputing Meaning is not straightforwardly mapped to the truth or the not-truth. The paper is a contribution to support the pragmatic interpretation of Frege's legacy by Micheal Dummett. (shrink)

We argue that Russell’s treatment of propositions containing non-existent denotations is the prelude of a strategy for discerning the predictive content of any proposition with descriptions (and incomplete symbols), insofar as its indeterminacy is classifiable as a possible extension. We argue, further, that Russell’s theory of propositional functions is dedicated to explaining the discernibility of hypothetical propositions, through representing (what we call) the superextension of assertoric modal propositions. The indeterminacy of the truth of hypothetical propositions is thus paired with a (...) second- order classification condition, expressing its conjectural content as the projected scope of instantiation of a propositional function; which in turn is the superextension of a modal predicate. Russell’s theory is his non-pragmatic answer to the problem of assertability in unstable and uncertain conditions. It involves a sophisticated thesis about the discernibility of complex contents, such as those represented by analogical and approximate denotations (descriptions, fictions, etc.), which classify more than one possibility of instantiation in different modal and intensional contexts. We will conclude this article by testing the assumption that Russell’s theory favors a coherentist theory, seeing that as it admits assertability conditions that are super-mapped in a system, or that derive from different orders of referential layers. (shrink)

Este ensayo busca hacer un aporte al reciente campo de la “ética empresarial”. Para ello, se propone llevar a cabo el análisis de la solidaridad en sus dos aspectos, el afectivo y el racional; es decir, la generada espontáneamente entre individuos que comparten un mismo interés y la que se produce entre grupos heterogéneos con distintos intereses con miras a un bien común. En un caso se puede hablar de una solidaridad horizontal, y en el otro, de una vertical. Se (...) toman como ejemplos las experiencias recientes de dos empresas alemanas (VW, Ingelheim Boehringer) para mostrar casos de solidaridad vertical distintos a los del estado de bienestar. Se plantea ir hacia una solidaridad como estructura en la que empleados y empresarios salgan beneficiados. (shrink)

It is a consensus to locate the origin of the reflexive foundations of modern semantics in Frege's work. Since Frege's distinction between two components of meaning (sense and reference), however, semantics has been forced to lead a double life. Among its first receptions, in Russell's famous article (1905), the first unresolved criticism of this solution was that: It is not possible to split semantics into a theory about two classes of objects without their yielding one and the same thing under (...) lower and higher conditions of instantiation (depending on the function used to identify it). But even Russell could not avoid a crisis. It is not possible to reconcile semantic coordination for a set of non-classical extension of instantiation and encoding (possible instances, counterfactual truth values, etc.) while preserving the classical properties of signification. This article covers these moments with a rough diagnosis: modern semantics has a reflexive ceiling. It is unable to model the contingent features of an "object" without oversizing itself to deal with various constraints on that object adapted to various strategies of intensional and modal specification. In order to model idealized conditions of assertability (Putnam), one must filter the sentences that pass Tarskian test using non-sematic parameters – like the parameter of coherence of a scientific paradigm. It cannot keep that model without stopping being semantic. We conclude with a response to attempts to give semantic status to complex scientific reasoning, and a suggestion as to how to locate the philosophical origin of this claim. (shrink)

CONTENIDO: Vestigios protodemocráticos en la Edad Media tardía: Marsilio de Papua, Nicolás de Cusa / Matthias Vollet / - La concepción normativa de la democracia: un aporte neokantiano / Rodolfo Arango / - El concepto de lo político y la razón pública en Schmit y Rawls / Miguel Vatter / - Democracia y liberación pública / Cristina Lafont / - La democracia desde la teoría de las emociones / Viviana Quintero / - Ontología y democracia en spinoza y Negri (...) / Amalia Rey / - Reconocimiento y redistribución: el rol de un teoría crítica de la democracia / Nicolás Espejo / - La contribución de Haberman a la crítica de la tecnocratización de la democracia / Luis Javier Orjuela / - Libertad, derecho y democracia: aspectos teóricos y pragmáticos, con énfasis en la competencia / Joachim Lege / - Democracia representativa y democracia deliberativa: reflexiones a partir de la situación peruana reciente / David Sobrevilla. (shrink)