Nonnaturalist realism is the view that normative properties are unique kind of stance-independent properties. It has been argued that such views fail to explain why two actions that are exactly alike otherwise must also have the same normative properties. Mark Schroeder and Knut Olav Skarsaune have recently suggested that nonnaturalist realists can respond to this supervenience challenge by taking the primary bearers of normative properties to be action kinds. This paper develops their response in two ways. (...) First, it provides additional motivation for the previous claim about the bearers of normative properties by drawing from the work of H. A. Prichard. Second, and more importantly, it formulates a plausible metaphysical framework based on the contemporary trope theory to explain why action kinds would have their second-order properties, including their normative properties, necessarily. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to evaluate Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit’s ‘program explanation’ framework as an account of the autonomy of the special sciences. We argue that this framework can only explain the autonomy of a limited range of special science explanations. The reason for this limitation is that the framework overlooks a distinction between two kinds of properties, which we refer to as ‘higher-level’ and ‘higher-order’ properties. The program explanation framework can account for (...) the autonomy of special science explanations that appeal to higher-level properties but it does not account for the autonomy of most of those explanations that appeal to higher-order properties. (shrink)

The paper argues that Jackson's knowledge argument fails to undermine physicalist ontology. First, it is argued that, as this argument stands, it begs the question. Second, it is suggested that by supplementing the argument , this flaw can be remedied insofar as the argument is taken to be an argument against type-physicalism; however, this flaw cannot be remedied insofar as the argument is taken to be an argument against token-physicalism. The argument cannot be supplemented so as to show that experiences (...) have properties which are illegitimate from a physicalist perspective. (shrink)

Higher-order realists about properties express their view that there are properties with the help of higher-order rather than first-order quantifiers. They claim two types of advantages for this way of formulating property realism. First, certain gridlocked debates about the nature of properties, such as the immanentism versus transcendentalism dispute, are taken to be dissolved. Second, a further such debate, the tropes versus universals dispute, is taken to be resolved. In this paper I (...) first argue that higher-order realism does not in fact resolve the tropes versus universals dispute. In a constructive spirit, I then develop higher-order realism in a way that leads to a dissolution, rather than a resolution, of this dispute too. (shrink)

On the basis of a new criterion for a property to be perceivable–a property is perceivable iff it is not only given immediately and non-volitionally, but also grasped via a holistic form of attention–in this paper we will claim that not only facial properties, but other high-order properties located in a hierarchy of high-order properties, notably gender and racial properties, are perceivable as well. Such claims will be both theoretically and empirically justified.

In this paper I take second order-quantification to be a sui generis form of quantification, irreducible to first-order quantification, and I examine the implications of doing so for the debate over the existence of properties. Nicholas K. Jones has argued that adding sui generis second-order quantification to our ideology is enough to establish that properties exist. I argue that Jones does not settle the question of whether there are properties because—like other ontological questions—it is (...) first-order. Then I examine three of the main arguments for the existence of properties. I conclude that sui generis second-order quantification defeats the “one over many” argument and that, coupled with second-order predication, it also defeats the reference and quantification arguments. (shrink)

Subverting a once widely held Quinean paradigm, there is a growing consensus among philosophers of logic that higher-order quantifiers (which bind variables in the syntactic position of predicates and sentences) are a perfectly legitimate and useful instrument in the logico-philosophical toolbox, while neither being reducible to nor fully explicable in terms of first-order quantifiers (which bind variables in singular term position). This article discusses the impact of this quantificational paradigm shift on metaphysics, focussing on theories of (...) class='Hi'>properties, propositions, and identity, as well as on the metaphysics of modality. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics (...) used in metaphysics, and indicate a number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

Higher-order logic augments first-order logic with devices that let us generalize into grammatical positions other than that of a singular term. Some recent metaphysicians have advocated for using these devices to raise and answer questions that bear on many traditional issues in philosophy. In contrast to these 'higher-order metaphysicians', traditional metaphysics has often focused on parallel, but importantly different, questions concerning special sorts of abstract objects: propositions, properties and relations. The answers to the (...) class='Hi'>higher-order and the property-theoretic questions may coincide sometimes but will often come apart. I argue that when they do, the higher-order questions are closer to the metaphysical action and so it would be better for these debates to proceed in higher-order terms. (shrink)

This paper is a study of higher-order contingentism – the view, roughly, that it is contingent what properties and propositions there are. We explore the motivations for this view and various ways in which it might be developed, synthesizing and expanding on work by Kit Fine, Robert Stalnaker, and Timothy Williamson. Special attention is paid to the question of whether the view makes sense by its own lights, or whether articulating the view requires drawing distinctions among possibilities (...) that, according to the view itself, do not exist to be drawn. The paper begins with a non-technical exposition of the main ideas and technical results, which can be read on its own. This exposition is followed by a formal investigation of higher-order contingentism, in which the tools of variable-domain intensional model theory are used to articulate various versions of the view, understood as theories formulated in a higher-order modal language. Our overall assessment is mixed: higher-order contingentism can be fleshed out into an elegant systematic theory, but perhaps only at the cost of abandoning some of its original motivations. (shrink)

Two expressive limitations of an infinitary higher-order modal language interpreted on models for higher-order contingentism – the thesis that it is contingent what propositions, properties and relations there are – are established: First, the inexpressibility of certain relations, which leads to the fact that certain model-theoretic existence conditions for relations cannot equivalently be reformulated in terms of being expressible in such a language. Second, the inexpressibility of certain modalized cardinality claims, which shows that in such (...) a language, higher-order contingentists cannot express what is communicated using various instances of talk of ‘possible things’, such as ‘there are uncountably many possible stars’. (shrink)

According to the KK-principle, knowledge iterates freely. It has been argued, notably in Greco, that accounts of knowledge which involve essential appeal to normality are particularly conducive to defence of the KK-principle. The present article evaluates the prospects for employing normality in this role. First, it is argued that the defence of the KK-principle depends upon an implausible assumption about the logical principles governing iterated normality claims. Once this assumption is dropped, counter-instances to the principle can be expected to arise. (...) Second, it is argued that even if the assumption is maintained, there are other logical properties of normality which can be expected to lead to failures of KK. Such failures are noteworthy, since they do not depend on either a margins-for-error principle or safety condition of the kinds Williamson appeals to in motivating rejection KK. “Introduction: KK and Being in a Position to Know” Section formulates two versions of the KK-Principle; “Inexact Knowledge and Margins for Error” Section presents a version of Williamson’s margins-for-error argument against it; “Knowledge and Normality” and “Iterated Normality” Sections discuss the defence of the KK-Principle due to Greco and show that it is dependent upon the implausible assumption that the logic of normality ascriptions is at least as strong as K4; finally, “Knowledge in Abnormal Conditions” and “Higher-Order Ignorance Inside the Margins” Sections argue that a weakened version of Greco’s constraint on knowledge is plausible and demonstrate that this weakened constraint will, given uncontentious assumptions, systematically generate counter-instances to the KK-principle of a novel kind. (shrink)

W. V. Quine famously defended two theses that have fallen rather dramatically out of fashion. The first is that intensions are “creatures of darkness” that ultimately have no place in respectable philosophical circles, owing primarily to their lack of rigorous identity conditions. However, although he was thoroughly familiar with Carnap’s foundational studies in what would become known as possible world semantics, it likely wouldn’t yet have been apparent to Quine that he was fighting a losing battle against intensions, due in (...) large measure to developments stemming from Carnap’s studies and culminating in the work of Kripke, Hintikka, and Bayart. These developments undermined Quine’s crusade against intensions on two fronts. First, in the context of possible world semantics, intensions could after all be given rigorous identity conditions by defining them (in the simplest case) as functions from worlds to appropriate extensions, a fact exploited to powerful and influential effect in logic and linguistics by the likes of Kaplan, Montague, Lewis, and Cresswell. Second, the rise of possible world semantics fueled a strong resurgence of metaphysics in contemporary analytic philosophy that saw properties and propositions widely, fruitfully, and unabashedly adopted as ontological primitives in their own right. This resurgence — happily, in my view — continues into the present day. -/- For a time, at any rate, Quine experienced somewhat better success with his second thesis: that higher-order logic is, at worst, confused and, at best, a quirky notational alternative to standard first-order logic. However, Quine notwithstanding, a great deal of recent work in formal metaphysics transpires in a higher-order logical framework in which properties and propositions fall into an infinite hierarchy of types of (at least) every finite order. Initially, the most philosophically compelling reason for embracing such a framework since Russell first proposed his simple theory of types was simply that it provides a relatively natural explanation of the paradoxes. However, since the seminal work of Prior there has been a growing trend to consider higher-order logic to be the most philosophically natural framework for metaphysical inquiry, many of the contributors to this volume being among the most important and influential advocates of this view. Indeed, this is now quite arguably the dominant view among formal metaphysicians. -/- In this paper, and against the current tide, I will argue in §1 that there are still good reasons to think that Quine’s second battle is not yet lost and that the correct framework for logic is first-order and type-free — properties and propositions, logically speaking, are just individuals among others in a single domain of quantification — and that it arises naturally out of our most basic logical and semantical intuitions. The data I will draw upon are not new and are well-known to contemporary higher-order metaphysicians. However, I will try to defend my thesis in what I believe is a novel way by suggesting that these basic intuitions ground a reasonable distinction between “pure” logic and non-logical theory, and that Russell-style semantic paradoxes of truth and exemplification arise only when we move beyond the purely logical and, hence, do not of themselves provide any strong objection to a type-free conception of properties and propositions. -/- Most of my arguments in §1 are largely independent of any specific account of the nature of properties and propositions beyond their type-freedom. However, I will in addition argue that there are good reasons to take propositions, at least, to be very fine-grained. My arguments are thus bolstered significantly if it can be shown that there are in fact well-defined examples of logics that are not only type-free but which comport with such a conception of propositions. It is the purpose of §2 to lay out a logic of this sort in some detail, drawing especially upon work by George Bealer and related work of my own. With the logic in place, it will be possible to generalize the line of argument noted above regarding Russell-style paradoxes and, in §3, apply it to two propositional paradoxes — the Prior-Kaplan paradox and the Russell-Myhill paradox — that are often taken to threaten the sort of account developed here. (shrink)

One of the distinctive properties of conscious states is the peculiar self- awareness implicit in them. Two rival accounts of this self-awareness are discussed. According to a Neo-Brentanian account, a mental state M is conscious iff M represents its very own occurrence. According to the Higher-Order Monitoring account, M is merely accompanied by a numerically distinct representation of its occurrence. According to both, then, M is conscious in virtue of figuring in a higher-order content. The (...) disagreement is over the question whether the higher-order content is carried by M itself or by a differ- ent state. While the Neo-Brentanian theory is phenomenologically more attractive, it is often felt to be somewhat mysterious. It is argued that the difference between the Neo- Brentanian and Higher-Order Monitoring theories is smaller and more empirical than may initially seem, and that the Neo-Brentanian theory can be readily demystified. These considerations make it prima facie preferable to the Higher-Order Monitoring theory. (shrink)

Higher-order theories of consciousness, such as those of Armstrong, Rosenthal and Lycan, typically distinguish sharply between consciousness and phenomenal character, or qualia. The higher-order states posited by these theories are intended only as explanations of consciousness, and not of qualia. In this paper I argue that the positing of higher-order perceptions may help to explain qualia. If we are realists about qualia, conceived as those intrinsic properties of our experience of which we are (...) introspectibly aware, then higher-order perception might have an explanatory role as the means by which we are aware of these properties. This would also allow us to treat qualia as the inner appearances resulting from inner perceptions, and therefore to treat them as intentional objects. (shrink)

Since it is hard to see how subjective rationality could be normative, a humbler, purely evaluative account of rationality’s importance has been suggested: rationality is a non-moral virtue, and rational action is good so far as it reveals that an agent ‘functions well’. This paper argues, however, that even this fallback position is threatened by ‘eccentric billionaire’ scenarios: sometimes, flouting purported coherence standards of rationality is maximally virtuous. In defense of the virtue account, I argue that a novel view of (...) rational constraints is called for: rationality requires a certain form of higher-order coherence – as considerations about instrumental coherence can show. (shrink)

Relying on a range of now-familiar thought-experiments, it has seemed to many philosophers that phenomenal consciousness is beyond the scope of reductive explanation. (Phenomenal consciousness is a form of state-consciousness, which contrasts with creature-consciousness, or perceptual-consciousness. The different forms of state-consciousness include various kinds of access-consciousness, both first-order and higher-order--see Rosenthal, 1986; Block, 1995; Lycan, 1996; Carruthers, 2000. Phenomenal consciousness is the property that mental states have when it is like something to possess them, or when they (...) have subjectively-accessible feels; or as some would say, when they have qualia (see fn.1 below).) Others have thought that we can undermine the credibility of those thought-experiments by allowing that we possess purely recognitional concepts for the properties of our conscious mental states. This paper is concerned to explain, and then to meet, the challenge of showing how purely recognitional concepts are possible if there are no such things as qualia--in the strong sense of intrinsic (non-relational, non-intentional) properties of experience. It argues that an appeal to higher-order experiences is necessary to meet this challenge, and then deploys a novel form of higher-order thought theory to explain how such experiences are generated. (shrink)

Kleene's realizability interpretation for first-order arithmetic was shown by Hyland to fit into the internal logic of an elementary topos, the “Effective topos” . In this paper it is shown, that there is an internal realizability definition in , i.e. a syntactical translation of the internal language of into itself of form “n realizes ” , which extends Kleene's definition, and such that for sentences , the equivalence [harr]n is true in . The internal realizability definition depends on finding (...) separated covers for non-separated objects of . However, for the objects arising in higher-order arithmetic, canonical covers are available, which are definable in higher-order arithmetic. These canonical covers yield “covering axioms”. It is shown that these covering axioms, together with uniformity principles and Extended Church's Thesis, axiomatize a formalized extension of Kleene realizability to a constructive system of higher-order arithmetic. The details are worked out for second and third-order arithmetic, but the method can be extended to any order. As an application, it is shown in the final section that a certain completeness property of the category of “modest sets” can be derived in third-order arithmetic from the realizability axioms. (shrink)

This book articulates and defends Fregean realism, a theory of properties based on Frege's insight that properties are not objects, but rather the satisfaction conditions of predicates. Robert Trueman argues that this approach is the key not only to dissolving a host of longstanding metaphysical puzzles, such as Bradley's Regress and the Problem of Universals, but also to understanding the relationship between states of affairs, propositions, and the truth conditions of sentences. Fregean realism, Trueman suggests, ultimately leads to (...) a version of the identity theory of truth, the theory that true propositions are identical to obtaining states of affairs. In other words, the identity theory collapses the gap between mind and world. This book will be of interest to anyone working in logic, metaphysics, the philosophy of language or the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Robb & Heil describe a higher-order version of the popular Causal Exclusion Problem. In particular, they ask whether the argument that led to a change in focus from event causation to causal relevance of properties can be iterated, leading us to focus on the causal relevance of properties of those properties, or properties of properties of those properties, and so on. In this paper, I investigate this curious higher-order problem and (...) argue that the appeal of both the original argument and its iterations reflects a lack of understanding of causal relata and a problem with the notion of causal relevance. (shrink)

We define and investigate constructibility in higher order arithmetics. In particular we get an interpretation ofn-order arithmetic inn-order arithmetic without the scheme of choice such that ∈ and the property “to be a well-ordering” are absolute in it and such that this interpretation is minimal among such interpretations.

Antireductionist philosophers have argued for higher-order classifications of qualia that locate consciousness outside the scope of conventional scientific explanations, viz., by classifying qualia as intrinsic, basic, or subjective properties, antireductionists distinguish qualia from extrinsic, complex, and objective properties, and thereby distinguish conscious mental states from the possible explananda of functionalist or physicalist explanations. I argue that, in important respects, qualia are intrinsic, basic, and subjective properties of conscious mental states, and that, contrary to antireductionists' suggestions, (...) these higher-order classifications are compatible with qualia reduction. I demonstrate this compatibility by examining the putative higher-order properties of qualia and comparing them to the higher-order properties characteristic of connectionist models of cognitive processes. I contend that the higher-order properties characteristic of connectionist networks approximate the putative higher-order properties of qualia sufficiently well to conclude that qualia reductionism can accommodate claims that qualia are intrinsic, basic, and subjective properties, and explain the motivating intuitions for those claims generated by inverted, absent, and alien qualia thought experiments. In this way I argue that the putative higher-order classifications of qualia not only fail to defeat qualia reduction but, ironically, turn out to support it. (shrink)

A typical interpreted formal language has (first‐order) variables that range over a collection of objects, sometimes called a domain‐of‐discourse. The domain is what the formal language is about. A language may also contain second‐order variables that range over properties, sets, or relations on the items in the domain‐of‐discourse, or over functions from the domain to itself. For example, the sentence ‘Alexander has all the qualities of a great leader’ would naturally be rendered with a second‐order variable (...) ranging over qualities. Similarly, the sentence ‘there is a property that holds of all and only the prime numbers’ has a variable ranging over properties of natural numbers. Third‐order variables range over properties of properties, sets of sets, functions from properties to sets, etc. For example, according to some logicist accounts, the number 4 is the property shared by all properties that apply to exactly four objects in the domain. Accordingly, the number 4 is a third‐order item. Fourth‐order variables, and beyond, are characterized similarly. The phrase ‘higher‐order variable’ refers to the variables beyond first‐order. (shrink)

It has been argued that nonreductive physicalism’s problems with mental causation disappear if we abandon the intuitive but naïve production-based conception of causation in favor of one based on counterfactual dependence and difference-making. In recent years, this response has been thoroughly developed and defended by James Woodward, who contends that Kim’s causal exclusion argument, widely thought to be the most serious threat to nonreductive mental causation, cannot even be given a coherent formulation within Woodward’s preferred interventionist framework. But Woodward has, (...) even more recently, defended a pair of necessary conditions on mental causation and higher-order causation more generally, and it is here that the interventionist framework proves less friendly to nonreductive mental causation. Functionalism is arguably the most important species of nonreductive physicalism concerning specifically mental properties, but, as I argue, functional properties fail both of Woodward’s tests of causal relevance, one of them in two different ways. The problem, moreover, seems unique to functionalism, for other types of higher-order properties appear to pass Woodward’s tests. If functionalism faces defeat even in such friendly territory, its problems with mental causation are not an artifact of naïve metaphysics. They run deep. (shrink)

Discussions of higher-order vagueness rarely define what it is for a term to have nth-order vagueness for n>2. This paper provides a rigorous definition in a framework analogous to possible worlds semantics; it is neutral between epistemic and supervaluationist accounts of vagueness. The definition is shown to have various desirable properties. But under natural assumptions it is also shown that 2nd-order vagueness implies vagueness of all orders, and that a conjunction can have 2nd-order vagueness (...) even if its conjuncts do not. Relations between the definition and other proposals are explored; reasons are given for preferring the present proposal. (shrink)

David Rosenthal's higher-order thought theory is one of the most widely argued for of the higher-order accounts of consciousness. I argue that Rosenthal vacillates between two models of the HOT theory. First, I argue that these models employ different concepts of 'state consciousness'; the two concepts each refer to mental state tokens, but in virtue of different properties. In one model, the concept of 'state consciousness' is more consistent with how the term is typically used, (...) both by philosophers and scientists, and in commonsense usage. This model, however, also has its problems. In the second part of the paper, I develop a modified version of Rosenthal's transitivity principle, thereby avoiding some complications that stem from the original transitivity principle. I suggest that Rosenthal occasionally employs this modified model himself, and that the inconsistency identified in the first section of this paper might really reflect Rosenthal's vacillation between these two versions of the transitivity principle. I offer one explanation for how this equivocation may have occurred. These two versions would result if articulations of the transitivity principle employed the term 'mental state' inconsistently, to refer on some occasions merely to mental state types, and on others, to tokened mental states. I conclude by arguing, contrary to Rosenthal and others, that the theory is not incompatible with view that conscious states are uniquely casual efficacious. (shrink)

This paper argues that higher‐order thought (HOT) models of consciousness face serious logical problems. The precise form these problems take varies depending on whether HOT models are understood as attempts to explicate the concept of (intransitive state) consciousness or as attempts to identify the property in virtue of which mental states are (intransitively) conscious. Understood in the former way, HOT models face a problem of circularity. Understood in the latter way, such models face a problem of regress.

The models of contingency in what propositions, properties and relations there are developed in Part 1 are related to models of contingency in what propositions there are due to Robert Stalnaker. It is shown that some but not all of the classes of models of Part 1 agree with Stalnaker’s models concerning the patterns of contingency in what propositions there are they admit. Further structural connections between the two kinds of models are explored.

We have a familiar idea of levels of description or levels of theory in science: microphysics, atomic physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and the various social sciences. It is clear that philosophers - such as Terry Horgan - who want to be nonreductive materialists with regard to the mental must hold that this is not mere description; there must be genuine higher-level causes, and hence, genuine higher-level properties, in particular mental properties and causes. But there appears to (...) be a deep problem concerning mental causes. The (micro-) physical world is causally closed. Mental states are - or depend on or are realized by - physical states. It seems, then, that the physical state on which a mental state depends will be responsible for any alleged effects of the mental state. There will be no room for mental causation. And if properties exist insofar at they have a causal role, there will be no room for mental properties either. Many philosophers - Horgan included - have seen this problem of the "causalexclusion" ofthe mental as a specialcase of a general problem:the exclusion of higher-level causes by the causal closure of microphysics. Suppose one higher-level state, H1 leads to another higher-level state, H2. H1 is realized by some base level state, B1, which leads to a base-level state, B2, which in turn realizes H2. All of the casual work, so to speak, takes place at the base level. There is no room for any genuine causal connection between H1, as such, and H2, as such. I argue that there is no problem about higher-order causation in general. There are genuine, unsurprising higher-level causes and properties. A ball roles, for example, or breaks a window. If there is a problem of exclusion regarding putative mental causes, it is not an instance of a general exclusion problem, but is sui generis, and mental causation remains mysterious. (shrink)

This is a review of "Properties and Propositions: The Metaphysics of Higher-Order Logic" by Robert Trueman. Following an overview of the main themes of the book, I discuss the metaphysical presuppositions of Trueman's Fregean notation for predicate abstraction and evaluate his argument for strict typing.

Relying on a range of now‐familiar thought‐experiments, it has seemed to many philosophers that phenomenal consciousness is beyond the scope of reductive explanation. (Phenomenal consciousness is a form of state‐consciousness, which contrasts with creature‐consciousness, or perceptual ‐consciousness. The different forms of state‐consciousness include various kinds of access‐consciousness, both first‐order and higher‐order–see Rosenthal, 1986; Block, 1995; Lycan, 1996; Carruthers, 2000. Phenomenal consciousness is the property that mental states have when it is like something to possess them, or when (...) they have subjectively‐accessible feels; or as some would say, when they have qualia (see fn. l below).) Others have thought that we can undermine the credibility of those thought‐experiments by allowing that we possess purely recognitional concepts for the properties of our conscious mental states. This paper is concerned to explain, and then to meet, the challenge of showing how purely recognitional concepts are possible if there are no such things as qualia–in the strong sense of intrinsic (non relational, non‐intentional) properties of experience. It argues that an appeal to higher‐order experiences is necessary to meet this challenge, and then deploys a novel form of higher‐order thought theory to explain how such experiences are generated. (shrink)

Serious actualism is the prima facie plausible thesis that things couldn’t have been related while being nothing. The thesis plays an important role in a number of arguments in metaphysics, e.g., in Plantinga’s argument for the claim that propositions do not ontologically depend on the things that they are about and in Williamson’s argument for the claim that he, Williamson, is necessarily something. Salmon has put forward that which is, arguably, the most pressing challenge to serious actualists. Salmon’s objection is (...) based on a scenario intended to elicit the judgment that merely possible entities may nonetheless be actually referred to, and so may actually have properties. It is shown that predicativism, the thesis that names are true of their bearers, provides the resources for replying to Salmon’s objection. In addition, an argument for serious actualism based on Stephanou, 219–250 2007) is offered. Finally, it is shown that once serious actualism is conjoined with some minimal assumptions, it implies property necessitism, the thesis that necessarily all properties are necessarily something, as well as a strong comprehension principle for higher-order modal logic according to which for every condition there necessarily is the property of being a thing satisfying that condition. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel answer to the question of what attitude agents should adopt when they receive misleading higher-order evidence that avoids the drawbacks of existing views. The answer builds on the independently motivated observation that there is a difference between attitudes that agents form as conclusions of their reasoning, called terminal attitudes, and attitudes that are formed in a transitional manner in the process of reasoning, called transitional attitudes. Terminal and transitional attitudes differ both in their (...) descriptive and in their normative properties. When an agent receives higher-order evidence that they might have reasoned incorrectly to a belief or credence towards p, then their attitude towards p is no longer justified as a terminal attitude towards p, but it can still be justified as a transitional attitude. This view, which I call the unmooring view, allows us to capture the rational impact of misleading higher-order evidence in a way that integrates smoothly with a natural picture of epistemic justification and the dynamics of deliberation. (shrink)

Necessitism about individuals claims that necessarily every individual necessarily exists. An analogous necessitist thesis attributes necessary existence to properties and relations. Both theses have been defended by Williamson. Furthermore, Williamson specifically argues against the hybrid conjunction of first-order contingentism and higher-order necessitism; a combination that would bring about additional drawbacks. I work out a defence of the hybrid combination, including some replies to Williamson’s additional objections. Considerations of ontological parsimony and pre-theoretical intuitions favour the hybrid view (...) over necessitism at all orders. (shrink)

I argue that there are different orders of mechanisms with different constitutive relevance and individuation conditions. In common first-order mechanistic explanations, constitutive relevance norms are captured by the matched-interlevel-experiments condition (Craver et al. (2021) Synthese 199:8807–8828). Regarding individuation, we say that any two mechanisms are of the same type when they have the same concrete components performing the same activities in the same arrangement. By contrast, in higher-order mechanistic explanations, we formulate the decompositions in terms of generalized (...) basic components (GBCs). These GBCs (e.g., logic gates) possess causal properties that are common to a set of physical systems. Mechanistic explanations formulated in terms of GBCs embody the epistemic value of horizontal integration, which aims to explain as many phenomena as possible with a minimal amount of abstract components (Wajnerman Paz (2017a) Philos Psychol 30:213–234). Two higher-order mechanisms are of the same type when they share all the same GBCs, and they are organized as performing the same activities with the same interactions. I use this notion of mechanistic order to enhance the mechanistic account of computation (MAC) and provide an account of the epistemic norms of computational explanation and the nature of medium-independent functional properties and mechanisms. Finally, I use these new conceptual tools to address four criticisms of the MAC. (shrink)

Things could have been different, but could it also have been different what things there are? It is natural to think so, since I could have failed to be born, and it is natural to think that I would then not have been anything. But what about entities like propositions, properties and relations? Had I not been anything, would there have been the property of being me? In this thesis, I formally develop and assess views according to which it (...) is both contingent what individuals there are and contingent what propositions, properties and relations there are. I end up rejecting these views, and conclude that even if it is contingent what individuals there are, it is necessary what propositions, properties and relations there are. -/- Call the view that it is contingent what individuals there are first-order contingentism, and the view that it is contingent what propositions, properties and relations there are higher-order contingentism. I bring together the three major contributions to the literature on higher-order contingentism, which have been developed largely independently of each other, by Kit Fine, Robert Stalnaker, and Timothy Williamson. I show that a version of Stalnaker's approach to higher-order contingentism was already explored in much more technical detail by Fine, and that it stands up well to the major challenges against higher-order contingentism posed by Williamson. -/- I further show that once a mistake in Stalnaker's development is corrected, each of his models of contingently existing propositions corresponds to the propositional fragment of one of Fine's more general models of contingently existing propositions, properties and relations, and vice versa. I also show that Stalnaker's theory of contingently existing propositions is in tension with his own theory of counterfactuals, but not with one of the main competing theories, proposed by David Lewis. -/- Finally, I connect higher-order contingentism to expressive power arguments against first-order contingentism. I argue that there are intelligible distinctions we draw with talk about "possible things", such as the claim that there are uncountably many possible stars. Since first-order contingentists hold that there are no possible stars apart from the actual stars, they face the challenge of paraphrasing such talk. I show that even in an infinitary higher-order modal logic, the claim that there are uncountably many possible stars can only be paraphrased if higher-order contingentism is false. I therefore conclude that even if first-order contingentism is true, higher-order contingentism is false. (shrink)

I discuss whether Michael Tye, in Ten Problems of Consciousness. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1966, holds that phenomenal properties are neurological properties, but that what gives them their phenomenal property names are their highly complex interconnections with other neurological properties and, most especially, subjects' surroundings. Or, alternatively, whether he holds that they are higher-level, wide functional properties in the sense of being properties of having properties that fill some specified wide or distal roles.

Second-order quantifier elimination in the context of classical logic emerged as a powerful technique in many applications, including the correspondence theory, relational databases, deductive and knowledge databases, knowledge representation, commonsense reasoning and approximate reasoning. In the current paper we first generalize the result of Nonnengart and Szałas [17] by allowing second-order variables to appear within higher-order contexts. Then we focus on a semantical analysis of conditionals, using the introduced technique and Gabbay’s semantics provided in [10] and (...) substantially using a third-order accessibility relation. The analysis is done via finding correspondences between axioms involving conditionals and properties of the underlying third-order relation. (shrink)

This thesis mounts an attack against accounts of perceptual justification that attempt to analyze it in terms of evidential justifiers, and has defended the view that perceptual justification should rather be analyzed in terms of non-evidential justification. What matters most to perceptual justification is not a specific sort of evidence, be it experiential evidence or factive evidence, what matters is that the perceptual process from sensory input to belief output is reliable. I argue for this conclusion in the following way. (...) Chapter 1: The Arguments from HallucinationChapter 1 presents a skeptical argument from hallucination that starts from a premise about the alleged introspective indistinguishability of perception and hallucination, and concludes that perceptual knowledge is impossible. Underlying this argument are certain assumptions about the nature of perceptual justification, and different responses to the argument portray different views of perceptual justification. Evidentialism and dogmatism both reject the premise that appearances do not provide evidence sufficient for perceptual knowledge, although they disagree about the precise nature of the appearances. Epistemological disjunctivism rejects the premise that introspectively indistinguishable experiences provide the same evidence, while upholding the idea that some sort of evidence, namely factive evidence, is necessary for perceptual justification and knowledge. Process reliabilism rejects the premise that evidence is necessary for perceptual knowledge on the grounds that even perceptual justification can be obtained without evidence, as long as the cognitive process producing the belief is reliable.Chapter 2: EvidentialismChapter 2 starts by introducing some motivations for experientialist views of perceptual justification, such as evidentialism and dogmatism, which hold that conscious experiences evidentially justify perceptual beliefs. These motivations have to do with their ability to accommodate the New Evil Demon Intuition that demon-deceived subjects have justified perceptual beliefs and the Blindsight Intuition that blindsighters do not have justified perceptual beliefs. However, experientialist views are also faced with a Sellarsian dilemma: either experience is construed as non-propositional, but then the proposed evidential relation is unclear, or experience is construed as propositional, but then it is ad hoc to hold that they can evidentially justify without being justified themselves.Chapter 2 continues with a discussion of evidentialism, which grasps the first horn of this dilemma. I argue that evidentialism cannot adequately explain why a non-propositional experience constitutes evidence for this rather than that belief, and also does not provide any account of how to determine which belief fits an evidence-set which partly consists out of non-propositional experiences. Although a reliabilist version of evidentialism can provide a better account of these matters, it suffers from counter-intuitive predictions about justification and a conception of evidence that is so liberal that it could even include blindsighters and clairvoyants as having such evidence.Chapter 3: DogmatismChapter 3 focuses on variants of dogmatism, a theory of perceptual justification that grasps the second horn of the Sellarsian dilemma by holding that a perceptual experience with the content that p is sufficient for immediate prima facie justification of the belief that p. I first argue that dogmatism should identify perceptual experiences with high-level conscious states to accommodate the problem of novice vs. expert identification and the problem of the speckled hen. I then argue that this version of dogmatism still fails to meet a certain explanatory challenge which I dub the `Distinctiveness Problem'. Dogmatism should explain what is so distinctive about perceptual experience that enables it, in contrast with desire and imagination, to evidentially justify the belief that p without, in contrast with belief, being justified itself.Phenomenalist answers to this problem fail because they either do not provide a distinctive property of perceptual experience, or else provide a property that is reducible to or possibly caused by beliefs. In both cases, dogmatism would have the result that intuitively unjustifying experiences, such as imaginations, nevertheless become capable of justifying beliefs. Moreover, phenomenalists still need some explanation of why phenomenology is epistemically relevant at all.A new variant of the problem of the speckled hen is an intuitive illustration of this point against dogmatists. If a perceptual experience that p is not reliably connected to the fact that p or the belief that p, then beliefs based on this experience simply will not be intuitively justified. One possible response to this problem incorporates reliability into the content of experience in the sense that an experience cannot have the content that p if it is not reliably connected to both the fact that p and the belief that p. However, this will lose the motivation from the New Evil Demon Scenario, and will make large concessions towards reliabilism.Chapter 4: Epistemological DisjunctivismGiven these problems for experientialist views of perceptual justification, chapter 4 focuses on a different evidential account of justification: epistemological disjunctivism. According to the Justified True Belief version of Epistemological Disjunctivism, the fact that I see that p is the factive and reflectively accessible evidence in virtue of which I know that p. I argue that JTBED faces formidable problems: first, it cannot adequately deal with the basis problem, second, it cannot accommodate the New Evil Demon Intuition, third,it faces the problem of hyper-intellectualization, and fourth, it has no good account of reflective access.Knowledge First Epistemological Disjunctivism, in contrast, holds that seeing that p just is a way of knowing that p. The fact that I see that p constitutes my justification for believing that p, even though it is not necessary for my knowledge that p. Although this view solves most of the above problems, I argue that KFED still faces a challenge of its own: its notion of justification is so strong that justification entails knowledge but is not itself entailed by it. This means that it too faces a hyper-intellectualization objection because it cannot accommodate animal justification, and that it too will struggle to accommodate the New Evil Demon Intuition.Nevertheless, there is something to the epistemological disjunctivist idea that higher-order capabilities are important to perceptual justification. Specifically, higher-order capabilities provide one with a way of accommodating the Blindsight Intuition without appealing to the notion of experiential evidence: blindsighters are epistemically worse off than normal human perceivers because they lack higher-order beliefs about how they are gaining their information. If one holds that these higher-order beliefs provide a special sort of justification for perceptual beliefs, then blindsighters lack this type of justification. Chapter 5: Process ReliabilismAfter displaying the problems of several evidential accounts of perceptual justification, chapter 5 introduces a non-evidential account: process reliabilism. The classic version of this view holds that the reliability of a belief-forming process is necessary and sufficient for the prima facie justification of a specific set of beliefs, namely, those that arise out of belief-independent processes. Two classic major problems for this view consist of counterexamples to both the necessity and sufficiency of reliability for justification. Although the Generality Problem raises some difficulties for reliabilism, they do not appear to be insurmountable.The second part of chapter 5 focuses on a variety of process reliabilism, inferentialist reliabilism, that is explicitly aimed at responding to clairvoyance cases. According to inferentialist reliabilism, one should distinguish between basic and non-basic beliefs, where basic beliefs are those that result out of the non-inferential operation of an inferentially opaque cognitive system that developed in a natural way. Reliability is only sufficient for the justification of basic beliefs, while non-basic beliefs also require conditional reliability and justification of the beliefs on which they are based.This distinction between basic and non-basic beliefs is meant to answer the challenge arising out of clairvoyance cases because these are all supposedly cases in which the resulting beliefs arenon-basic. However, I argue that the beliefs in these cases come out as non-basic primarily because of the etiological constraint on cognitive systems, a constraint that is unfortunately undermotivated. It seems that beliefs can be justified even if they are produced by a cognitive system that developed by accident, or by a system that was artificially designed to produce those beliefs. So even though the inferentialist reliabilist might have a point in distinguishing between basic and non-basic beliefs, it is still in need of a different response to clairvoyance cases. Chapter 6: Rejoinders for ReliabilismChapter 6 improves on the inferentialist reliabilist account of justification by presenting a different way of dealing with the clairvoyance cases and New Evil Demon Scenario. I start from the empirically plausible idea that we know that we are perceiving when we are perceiving, not because of the use of experiential evidence, but rather, because of an unconscious source-monitoring mechanism. I then argue that the existence of such a source-monitoring mechanism could be used to explain why clairvoyance cases actually have to do with defeat rather than absence of prima facie justification: beliefs that pop up in our head should be recognized as stemming from untrustworthy sources, and so we acquire defeating higher-order beliefs about the first-order beliefs. I also argue that this defeat should be able to occur even if the higher-order beliefs are themselves unjustified. This defeater-account of clairvoyance is preferable to several externalist alternatives. Making reliability relative to a specific world seems rather ad hoc, and further requirements on justification, such as evidence-based belief, cognitively integrated belief, or properly produced belief, all appear unnecessary and are susceptible to adapted versions of the clairvoyance case.I further argue for an alternative inferentialist reliablist response to the New Evil Demon Intuition which treats it as mistaken rather than correct. The New Evil Demon Intuition might arise because of a mistaken view of actual perceptual justification as having to do with experiential evidence. This mistaken view could be explained by the fact that experience is actually reliably connected to belief and is often cited in response to a knowledge-challenge. If this is a correct analysis of the New Evil Demon Intuition, then there is an element of question-begging involved when this scenario is still pressed against inferentialist reliabilists who do not adhere to the experientialist assumption it presupposes.With the inferentialist reliabilist account in hand,we are able to see that many of the premises of the epistemological argument from hallucination are problematic. Evidence does not appear to be required for perceptual knowledge, as perceptual justification does not even require such evidence. Moreover, if we accept a reliabilist model of introspection, then we are often able to know on the basis of introspection that we are perceiving rather than hallucinating. Once one gets clear about the alternatives, it becomes apparent that the argument thrives on internalist assumptions about justification and knowledge that one need not accept. (shrink)

Quine’s most important charge against second-, and more generally, higher-order logic is that it carries massive existential commitments. The force of this charge does not depend upon Quine’s questionable assimilation of second-order logic to set theory. Even if we take second-order variables to range over properties, rather than sets, the charge remains in force, as long as properties are individuated purely extensionally. I argue that if we interpret them as ranging over properties more (...) reasonably construed, in accordance with an abundant or deflationary conception, Quine’s charge can be resisted. This interpretation need not be seen as precluding the use of model-theoretic semantics for second-order languages; but it will preclude the use of the standard semantics, along with the more general Henkin semantics, of which it is a special case. To that extent, the approach I recommend has revisionary implications which some may find unpalatable; it is, however, compatible with the quite different special case in which the second-order variables are taken to range over definable subsets of the first-order domain, and with respect to such a semantics, some important metalogical results obtainable under the standard semantics may still be obtained. In my final section, I discuss the relations between second-order logic, interpreted as I recommend, and a strong version of schematic ancestral logic promoted in recent work by Richard Heck. I argue that while there is an interpretation on which Heck’s logic can be contrasted with second-order logic as standardly interpreted, when it is so interpreted, its differences from the more modest form of second-order logic I advocate are much less substantial, and may be largely presentational. (shrink)

A generator program for a computable function (by definition) generates an infinite sequence of programs all but finitely many of which compute that function. Machine learning of generator programs for computable functions is studied. To motivate these studies partially, it is shown that, in some cases, interesting global properties for computable functions can be proved from suitable generator programs which cannot be proved from any ordinary programs for them. The power (for variants of various learning criteria from the literature) (...) of learning generator programs is compared with the power of learning ordinary programs. The learning power in these cases is also compared to that of learning limiting programs, i.e., programs allowed finitely many mind changes about their correct outputs. (shrink)

The paper contains a review and a discussion of Robert Trueman's book Properties and Propositions: The Metaphysics of Higher-Order Logic, Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. xii + 227. ISBN 978-1-108-81410-2. The discussion is focused on the consistency of Truema's language-based ontology and on its value in defending higher-order logic.

The constructs of motivation (or needs, motives, etc.) to explain higher-order behavior have burgeoned in psychology. In this article, we critically evaluate such high-level motivation constructs that many researchers define as causal determinants of behavior. We identify a fundamental issue with this predominant view of motivation, which we called the black-box problem. Specifically, high-level motivation constructs have been considered as causally instigating a wide range of higher-order behavior, but this does not explain what they actually are (...) or how behavioral tendencies are generated. The black box problem inevitably makes the construct ill-defined and jeopardizes its theoretical status. To address the problem, we discuss the importance of mental computational processes underlying motivated behavior. Critically, from this perspective, motivation is not a unitary construct that causes a wide range of higher-order behavior --- it is an emergent property that people construe through the regularities of subjective experiences and behavior. The proposed perspective opens new avenues for future theoretical development, i.e., the examination of how motivated behavior is realized through mental computational processes. (shrink)

This paper defends a deflationary conception of properties, according to which a property exists if and only if there could be a predicate with appropriate satisfaction conditions. I argue that purely general properties and relations necessarily exist and discuss the bearing of this conception of properties on the interpretation of higher-order logic and on Quine's charge that higher-order logic is ‘set theory in sheep's clothing’. On my approach, the usual semantics involves a false (...) assimilation of the logic to set theory. I conclude with remarks about implications for the programme of founding mathematical theories in higher-order logic plus abstraction principles. (shrink)

This paper studies a distinction that was proposed in previous works between total and partial adjectives. In pairs of adjectives such as safe–dangerous, clean–dirty and healthy–sick, the first (“total”) adjective describes lack of danger, dirt, malady, etc., while the second (“partial”) adjective describes the existence of such properties. It is shown that the semantics of adjective phrases with modifiers such as almost, slightly, and completely is sensitive to whether the adjective is total or partial. The interpretation of such modified (...) constructions is accounted for using a novel scale structure for total and partial adjectives. It is proposed that the standard value of a total adjective is always fixed as the lower bound of the corresponding partial adjective. By contrast, the standard value of partial adjectives can take any point on the partial scale. The effects of this theoretical distinction on the behavior of modified constructions are studied in detail, and their ramifications for the semantic theory of adjectives are discussed. Some other phenomena are surveyed that show evidence for total and partial adjectival constructions with various comparatives and exceptive phrases. (shrink)

This chapter defends the property dualism argument. The term “semantic premise” mentioned is used to refers to an assumption identified by Brian Loar that antiphysicalist arguments, such as the property dualism argument, tacitly assume that a statement of property identity that links conceptually independent concepts is true only if at least one concept picks out the property it refers to by connoting a contingent property of that property. It is argued that, the property that does the work in explaining the (...) possibility of a posteriori identities need not be a first-order property of the referent in question. On his view, the property dualism argument requires only a weaker semantic premise, which allows that the property in question be a higher order property. A refined version of the property dualism argument is formulated, which uses the weaker premise, and defends the argument against various objections. (shrink)

A number of arguments purport to show that vague properties determine sharp boundaries at higher orders. That is, although we may countenance vagueness concerning the location of boundaries for vague predicates, every predicate can instead be associated with precise knowable cut-off points deriving from precision in their higher order boundaries. I argue that this conclusion is indeed paradoxical, and identify the assumption responsible for the paradox as the Brouwerian principle B for vagueness: that if p then (...) it's determinate that it's not determinate that not p. Other paradoxes which do not appear to turn on B turn instead on some subtle issues concerning the relation between assertion, belief and higher order vagueness. In this paper a theory of assertion, knowledge and logic is outlined which allows one to avoid any kind of higher order precision. A class of realistic models containing counterexamples to B and a number of weakenings of B are introduced and its logic is shown to support vagueness at every order. (shrink)

Higher-order logic, with its type-theoretic apparatus known as the simple theory of types (STT), has increasingly come to be employed in theorizing about properties, relations, and states of affairs—or ‘intensional entities’ for short. This paper argues against this employment of STT and offers an alternative: ordinal type theory (OTT). Very roughly, STT and OTT can be regarded as complementary simplifications of the ‘ramified theory of types’ outlined in the Introduction to Principia Mathematica (on a realist reading). While (...) STT, understood as a theory of intensional entities, retains the Fregean division of properties and relations into a multiplicity of categories according to their adicities and ‘input types’ and discards the division of intensional entities into different ‘orders’, OTT takes the opposite approach: it retains the hierarchy of orders (though with some modifications) and discards the categorisation of properties and relations according to their adicities and input types. In contrast to STT, this latter approach avoids intensional counterparts of the Epimenides and related paradoxes. Fundamental intensional entities lie at the base of the proposed hierarchy and are also given a prominent part to play in the individuation of non-fundamental intensional entities. (shrink)