Abstract Interpreted as a difficulty in determining relevance, the epistemological frame problem was a central source of debate within Cognitive Science during the 1980s and 1990s and has received renewed attention in recent discussions. Rather than assuming that the problem has been resolved, this paper argues that the frame problem remains a substantive challenge for contemporary Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence. In recent years, several alternatives to classical cognitivism emphasizing agent-environment interaction have revisited the problem of relevance determination. This paper examines whether such approaches provide sufficiently explicit accounts of relevance under dynamic conditions. While appeals to situated cognition help constrain inferential possibilities and reduce computational load, we argue that they do not dissolve the frame problem, since expectations, goals, and accumulated knowledge reintroduce an open-ended space of relevance. The main contribution of this work is to clarify why the frame problem persists even situated character of cognition, and to show that addressing it requires more than environmental or bodily constraints, pointing instead to the explanatory demands imposed by relevance determination in dynamic contexts.
Abstract Some speakers have their linguistic agency unfairly restricted. Here I explore one way in which silencing can be countered. Instead of individual speakers, I focus on group political action, a strategy successfully employed by feminist movements. I argue that protests have the power to update our normative landscape and, in particular, to amend silencing linguistic practices. To this aim, I apply the presupposition framework introduced by Langton and West, as well as Langton’s view on blocking and counterspeech, to the analysis of feminist movements. In this framework, silencing is the result of the presence of silencing presuppositions. I then argue that some feminist slogans can be understood as blocking silencing presuppositions and therefore promoting more just linguistic practices. Importantly, collective speakers can avoid some of the problems that individual speakers face in their attempts to undo silencing.
Several epistemologists reject Conciliationism on the basis that it self-undermines. They maintain that self-undermining positions are untenable. We argue that these attacks fail to show that there is something fundamentally wrong with Conciliationism. To this end, we examine carefully what the problem can be. First, we discard three inadequate diagnoses -we argue that being self-undermining neither shows that the view is false, nor that it defeats warrant in its favour, nor that it gives incoherent or inviable advice. Second, we develop our own diagnosis, according to which the problem is that the very belief in Conciliationism constitutes a (potentially temporary) rational obstacle for endorsement of the view, which means that subjects are unable to exploit their warrant in favour of the view. Unlike extant positions, on our construal of the problem, conciliationists should not be seriously worried by it, for it is not a serious threat for the plausibility of the view.
Abstract In the practice and teaching of logic, incomplete systems are typically not regarded as proper logical systems. Their study is marginal if not absent in most courses. There seems to be a tyranny of completeness. I find this problematic as many systems are being left behind. This article aims to challenge such tyranny, which I find to be a consequence of a traditional view of logic as a discipline that studies content-independent truths. I begin by showing how this view is inherited from Hilbert’s foundational program. As an alternative, I take a pragmatist view of logic from Frege, Brandom, and Frápolli. I then argue that this view implies a Principle of Expressive Power Priority (PEP) for picking out logical systems, and I show that the tyranny is simply a generalization of a singular case of application of PEP that is correct when we are interested in systems to be run exclusively by computers. But I argue that if the systems are to be employed by knowledgeable human beings, incomplete systems are still interesting. Thus, from this pragmatist view of logic we can overcome the tyranny and rekindle interest in incomplete systems without losing sight on the import of completeness.
Abstract Ordinary thinkers don’t know every necessary truth - they are not “logically omniscient.” Furthermore, they don’t know everything that follows from their beliefs - they are not “deductively omniscient.” Stalnaker has famously argued that this is partly due to the “fragmentation” of our beliefs, which are divided into different belief-states. Elga and Rayo have developed this idea, arguing that an agent has access to different information under different conditions, such that her doxastic state is divided (“fragmented”) into different informational states. In this article, I distinguish fragmentation from an alternative approach to limited information access. According to this second approach, our limited access to information is explained by our representation-processing mechanisms - the ways in which mental representations are processed by our cognitive systems. I argue that this approach must be sharply distinguished from fragmentation: The limitations that result from our representation-processing mechanisms need not amount to a fragmented doxastic state. The distinction is especially significant given recent objections against fragmentation: Stalnaker’s and Elga and Rayo’s views still seem to attribute an implausible amount of knowledge to ordinary thinkers. I show that an account based on representation processing avoids these objections, thereby opening up a viable alternative to fragmentation.
