Conservative Meinongianism ABSTRACT: This paper defends the Meinongian thesis that “there are objects of which it is true that there are no such objects,” in relation to fictitious and illusory objects. I first collect 23 different data-points from natural language, and discuss why an anti-Meinongian is hard pressed to explain them. The Meinongian, in contrast, easily and uniformly explains the same data, by allowing the existence Pegasus, pink elephants, and the like. But unlike other Meinongians, who hold that Pegasus and the rest are mind-independent, I hold that such things are mind-dependent, precisely because they are imaginary or hallucinated. (Yet unlike Quine’s McX, I distinguish Pegasus from the idea of Pegasus, even though the Pegasus-idea is mind-dependent as well.) Such a Meinongian view is “conservative” in that it merely acknowledges the sense in which there are mind-dependent objects, imaginary and illusory objects being prime examples. (The “ideology” is conservative as well, in that I paraphrase away the Meinongian’s jargon of “nuclear” or “encoded” properties.) I end by arguing that it is presumptive to use Occham’s razor against Meinongian objects, since this would assume we can achieve empirical adequacy without them. Yet this assumption is now seen as contentious, provided the contrast between the Meinongian and the anti-Meinongian explanations . Ontic Terms and Meta-Ontology, or: On What There Actually Is ABSTRACT: Terms such as ‘exist’, ‘actual’, etc., (hereafter, “ontic terms”) are recognized as having uses that are not ontologically committing, in addition to the usual commissive uses. (Consider, e.g., the two interpretations of ‘There is an even prime.’) In this paper, I identify five different non-commissive uses for ontic terms, and along the way I attempt to define (by a kind of via negativa) the commissive use of an ontic term, using ‘actual’ as my example. The problem, however, is that the resulting definiens for the commissive ‘actual’ is itself equivocal between a commissive and a non-commissive reading, and thus I consider other proposals for defining the commissive use, including two proposals from David Lewis. However, each proposal is found to be equivocal in the same way—and eventually I argue that it is impossible to define an ontic term unequivocally. Even so, this is not meant to overshadow the fact that we can understand an ontic term as univocally commissive, in certain conversational contexts. I close by illustrating the import of these observations for meta-ontology, especially for Hirsch’s “superficialist” view. Modal Realism and the Meaning of 'Exist' ABSTRACT: Here I first raise an argument purporting to show that Lewis’ Modal Realism ends up being entirely trivial. But although I reject this line, the argument reveals how difficult it is to interpret Lewis’ thesis that possibilia “exist.” Four natural interpretations are considered, yet upon reflection, none appear entirely adequate. In particular, under the three different “concretist” interpretations of ‘exist’, Modal Realism looks insufficient for genuine ontological commitment. Whereas under the “multiverse” interpretation, Modal Realism ends up being incompatible with each of axioms S5 and B. I close by entertaining a more general problem from which the present interpretive issues seem to arise. Externalism and "Knowing What" You Think ABSTRACT: Some worry that semantic externalism is incompatible with knowing via introspection what content your thoughts have. In this paper, one primary argument is examined for this incompatibilist worry, the slow-switch argument. Following Goldberg, the argument is construed as problematizing an externalist’s skeptic immune knowledge of content (where this type of knowledge persists under various skeptical hypotheses). Goldberg attempts to reclaim such knowledge for the externalist by developing a strategy from Burge. Nevertheless, it is noted that such Burge-style accounts only address a subject’s ability to know that she is thinking that “water is wet.” They do not explicitly concern the subject’s ability to know what she is thinking, which is the distinctive type of knowing at issue in the slow-switch argument. Subsequently, however, the Burge-style view is recast so that the relevant “knowing what” has a chance against the argument. For one, it is emphasized that “knowing what” is intensional (one can know what a water thought is sans familiarity with H2O-thoughts). Second, the relevant “knowing what” is construed as ontologically non-committal (so that knowing what a water-thought is does not require knowing that water exists). Third, following Boër & Lycan, “knowing what” is understood as purpose relative, in that whether one “knows what” depends on whether one knows enough to achieve some contextually salient purpose/goal. And for at least some purposes, it seems an externalist can introspectively “know what” she thinks—even in a skeptical context.
ABSTRACT: Several authors have argued that, assuming we have a priori knowledge of our own thought-contents, semantic externalism implies that we can know a priori contingent facts about the empirical world. After presenting the argument, I shall respond by resisting the premise that an externalist can know a priori: If s/he has the concept water, then water exists. In particular, Boghossian’s Dry Earth example suggests that such thought-experiments do not provide such a priori knowledge. Boghossian himself rejects the Dry Earth experiment, however, since it would imply that externalism is true of empty concepts as well as non-empty concepts. Yet in this paper I respond by defending empty-concept externalism, from criticisms suggested by Boghossian and also by Jessica Brown. Specifically, I argue that the view does not preclude an empty concept from having the appropriate form or structure—nor would it reveal a priori that a linguistic community is necessary for an empty concept to have a content. A Priori Infalliblism: Reply to Hoffmann ABSTRACT: The present piece is a reply to G. Hoffmann on my infallibilist view of self-knowledge. Contra Hoffmann, it is argued that the view is compatible with (i) strictly a priori justification, and (ii) the Quinean dictum that any belief is empirically revisable. Note on Induction Think [Cambridge UP], forthcoming. ABSTRACT: I provide a counterexample to the view (common in logic textbooks) that induction is partly defined by the reasoner's intentions. Also, an alternative definition is offered, where induction is tentatively seen as a type of argument by analogy. Externalism and Self-Knowledge Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Summer 2012 Edition), E. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming. A summary of the (overwhelming amount of) literature on whether semantic externalism is compatible with knowing non-empirically the content of one's own thoughts. Modal Metaphysics Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, March 2012, J. Feiser & B. Dowden (eds.), http://www.iep.utm.edu/mod-meta/ This summarizes of some prominent views about the metaphysics of possible worlds. Quine and Logical Truth Erkenntnis 68.1; Jan 2008. pp. 103-112. ABSTRACT: It is a consequence of Quine's confirmation holism that the logical laws are in principle revisable. Some have worried this is at odds with another dictum in Quine, viz., that any translation which construes speakers as systematically illogical is ipso facto inadequate. In this paper, I try to formulate exactly what the problem is here, and offer a solution to it by (1) disambiguating the term 'logic', and (2) appealing to a Quinean understanding of necessity. The result is that different theses in Quine's philosopy of logic are to be situated within different contexts of inquiry. Infallibilism about Self-Knowledge Philosophical Studies 133; Apr 2007. pp. 411-424. ABSTRACT: Descartes held the view that a subject has infallible beliefs about the contents of her thoughts. Here, I first examine a popular contemporary defense of this claim, given by Burge (1988), and find it lacking. I then offer my own defense, appealing to a minimal version of the language of thought hypothesis. The argument here has the virtue of refraining from any semantic premises; thus, it is congenial to both internalists and externalists about semantics. The argument also illuminates how a subject may have an a priori and privileged access to her own thoughts.
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