In this paper I examine two common conservative responses to two questions about social progress: How should social progress be pursued? And when does social change constitute social progress? These two responses can be summarised as follows: “Less teleologically, and less often, than non-conservatives generally think”. The first response is anchored in a criticism of the claims of reason in the pursuit of social progress. I reconstruct and examine this criticism and its variants, and then turn to the second response, and more specifically to a way of arguing for it based on value conservatism. I argue that, even if correct, value conservatism speaks less often against social change than conservatives generally think.
This paper addresses the question of how to account for the distinctive way in which, as a matter of fact, we react to philosophical disagreement and, more generally, to philosophical testimony. The paper explains how exactly the idea that understanding occupies a central place in philosophy can account for this. It examines two interpretations of this idea and argues that the second, but not the first, can solve the so‐called puzzle of philosophical testimony. This second interpretation turns out to be compatible with the idea that philosophy aims at finding out or knowing substantive philosophical truths rather than at understanding them. The paper then turns to the question of whether this central place means that philosophy is not a collective discipline .
According to veridicalism, if a subject's beliefs have always been elicited by a computer simulation that wholly and perfectly simulates the world W it is a simulation of, and that is as open-ended as W is, then most of their beliefs are true. In this paper I examine David Chalmers's argument that a subject's being wrong about the fundamental nature of the entities that their everyday beliefs refer to does not render those beliefs false and show that it is unconvincing.
We regularly intentionally expose ourselves to fictions we take to be likely to elicit in us emotions we generally find unpleasant when prompted by actual states of affairs. This is the so-called “paradox of tragedy.” We contribute to solving the paradox of tragedy by denying that, when fiction-directed, most of these emotions are in themselves unpleasant. We first provide strong evidence that these emotions, such as fear, sadness, or pity, are often enjoyed when fiction-directed. We then advance an explanation of what makes these fiction-directed emotions often not unpleasant, while their reality-directed counterparts are generally so. In the last section, we advance an explanation of what makes fiction-directed emotions often enjoyable, and argue that a complete solution to the paradox of tragedy should be pluralist.
The intuition that knowledge requires the satisfaction of some sort of anti-luck condition is widely shared. I examine the claim that modal robustness is sufficient for satisfying this condition: for a true belief to be non-luckily true, it is sufficient that this belief is safe and sensitive. I argue that this claim is false by arguing that, at least when it comes to beliefs in necessary truths, satisfying the anti-luck condition requires satisfying a non-modal condition. I also advance a plausible candidate for this condition and argue for the implausibility of mathematical Platonism on this basis.
Uniformism is the view that one and the same epistemology should apply for all modal knowledge. I argue that, whether or not all modal knowledge can be accounted for in terms of knowledge of essences, uniformism about knowledge of essences is untenable. I do this by showing that, while some essences are empirically discoverable, others are not. I then argue that the uniquely realisable–non-uniquely realisable distinction is a better metaphysical candidate for grounding this epistemic difference than the concrete–abstract distinction. I conclude by suggesting that the task of philosophy is to identify non-empirically discoverable essences.
My aim in this article is to elucidate the nature of a form of intellectual and practical neutrality that is not covered by existing accounts of suspension of judgment. After rejecting some inadequate characterizations of this attitude of neutrality, I provide a positive characterization of it: it is a successful effort to resist certain tendencies that are part of the dispositional profile of the doxastic state one is in on a given issue. I conclude by saying a few words about the reasons for which this effort can be made, and by answering in the negative the question of whether all the attitudes that can be characterized as attitudes of committed neutrality are of the same type.
In this paper I raise a paradox of belief inspired by Kripke's 'paradox of knowledge', which states that knowledge seems to make permissible an intuitively unacceptable form of dogmatism. This paradox of belief is based on an intuitively correct principle of doxastic coherence. My aim is to show that this paradox contributes to elucidating the puzzling nature of belief.
Following a common assumption, when one inquires into a question, one has an inquisitive attitude towards it. More precisely, I shall assume that there is an inquisitive attitude towards Q that all of those who inquire into Q have in common and in virtue of which they can be said to be in an inquisitive state of mind towards Q. This paper is about the nature of this attitude. I elucidate it by examining whether it boils down to doubt, curiosity, epistemic desire, or wondering. I shall do this by examining whether having these attitudes is necessary and sufficient for being in an inquisitive state of mind. The test will prove negative for the first three, but the case of wondering is more complex.
In order to know how to understand a languageless creature, one has to know what types of intentional attitudes, with what types of content, it is possible to attribute to it. In this paper, I shall examine three "differentialist" answers to this question, according to which there is a categorical difference between humans and languageless animals when it comes to their respective intentional attitudes. I shall examine in particular Davidson's strongest argument for a strong form of differentialism: the indetermination argument, according to which our inability to attribute any determinate content to any supposed animal belief implies that we should not attribute beliefs to animals. By relying on Peter Hacker's conceptual analyses, I shall endorse two of the three premises of the indetermination argument, which will result in defending a moderate form of differentialism.
Répondre à la question de savoir comment comprendre un être dépourvu de langage implique de savoir quels types d’attitudes intentionnelles, et avec quels contenus, il est possible de lui attribuer. On examinera ici trois réponses « différentialistes » à cette dernière question, d’après lesquelles une différence de catégorie ou de nature sépare, s’agissant de ces attitudes et de leurs contenus, les êtres pourvus de langage, tels les humains, et ceux qui en sont dépourvus, tels les animaux. On discutera en particulier du plus solide des arguments de Donald Davidson en faveur d’un différentialisme fort : l’argument de l’indétermination, d’après lequel de notre incapacité à attribuer un contenu déterminé à toute croyance animale supposée il suit qu’il ne faudrait pas attribuer aux animaux la moindre croyance. En s’appuyant sur les analyses wittgensteiniennes de Peter Hacker, on rejettera l’une des trois prémisses de cet argument tout en défendant les deux autres, ce qui conduira à avancer un différentialisme modéré.
There clearly seems to be something problematic with certain forms of epistemic dependence. However, it has proved surprisingly difficult to articulate what this problem is exactly. My aim in this paper is to make clear when it is problematic to rely on others or on artefacts and technologies that are external to us for the acquisition and maintenance of our beliefs, and why. In order to do so, I focus on the neuromedia thought experiment. After having rejected different ways in which one might want to capture the intuition in question, I argue that this device deprives us of understanding and therefore of the most valuable epistemic good. I then address the question of whether the moral of the story is that we should not develop, be equipped with, or use devices such as the neuromedia.
How is it possible for deontic evaluations of beliefs to be appropriate if we do not have voluntary control over our beliefs? I argue that we should reject the claim that we can have indirect control over beliefs in virtue of the basic voluntary control we have over our actions. We have another kind of indirect control over beliefs: we can demonstrate doxastic strength or, on the contrary, doxastic weakness when forming our beliefs. That is, we can resist or, on the contrary, fail to resist the influence of some of our conative attitudes. And in the same way that we take our actions to be open to blame when they result from having demonstrated weakness of will even though this does not consist in doing something at will, we take our beliefs to be open to blame, and hence subject to deontic evaluation, when they result from having demonstrated doxastic weakness even though this does not consist in doing something at will.
Abstract Imagine you are an agnostic who wants to maximise your chances of getting the right answer to the question whether God exists. I show that theism and atheism are not on an epistemic par with one another because, under certain possible epistemically neutral conditions, the rational thing for you to do from a purely epistemic point of view would be to bet on the atheist’s judgement that God doesn’t exist rather than on the theist’s judgement that God does exist.
It seems to be a platitude that the belief that p is correct iff it is true that p. And the claim that truth is the correct-making feature of belief seems to be just another way of expressing this platitude. It is often thought that this indicates that truth constitutes a normative standard or criterion of correctness for belief because it seems to follow from this platitude that having a false belief is believing wrongly, and having a true belief is believing rightly or correctly. In this paper, I aim to show that when we judge the platitude in question to be indisputably true, we do not endorse that truth is normative for belief but merely the triviality that the belief that p is true iff it is true that p.
J’expose et critique l’interprétation reçue de la controverse classique entre William Clifford et William James sur ce qu’est l’éthique de la croyance. Je défends la position de Clifford en soutenant que sa fameuse maxime selon laquelle « on a tort, partout, toujours et qui que l’on soit de croire que ce soit sur la base d’éléments de preuves insuffisants » doit être comprise comme énonçant que toute croyance qui est le produit de la corruption de notre jugement par nos désirs est fautive. J’indique ce qu’il s’ensuit à propos des croyances religieuses en particulier.
I endeavor to determine exactly what Peirce's thesis of the iconicity of thought means and implies and how far it can be maintained. In particular, I argue that while for Peirce necessary reasoning requires an iconic dimension in order to be carried out, it does not follow that this is true of reasoning in general. I then suggest a way in which the thesis that 'it is by icons only that we really reason' could be defended on the basis of Peirce's philosophical system. I consider difficulties of the conception of thought upon which this defense is based, namely, that thinking is processual in nature and that our thoughts are in continuity with each other. More specifically, I argue that this view generates a tension within Peirce's system, and I reject it on the basis of Geachian arguments that, at the same time, shed new light on Peirce's most insightful claims concerning the nature of thought.
