Lok‑Chi Chan and Kuei‑Chen Chen are right that we need to find versions of naturalism and of phenomenology that can live together. They are also right that the indexicality of phenomenology does not reveal that naturalism is incomplete, but do not detail why this is the case. I offer the needed detail.

Michael Pelczar is right that we need an explanation of the regularities in our experiences, and that this means we should reject traditional idealism. His version of phenomenalism might seem to offer the needed explanation, but what seems to be the case is not in fact the case.

I argue that the three drugs example makes trouble for the role Smith gives to being fully rational in his solution to the moral problem, given his understanding of what it takes to be fully rational. I conclude by suggesting he might have drawn on a different understanding of what it takes to be fully rational.

I agree with Torin Alter that physicalists should be a priori physicalists. I argue against his rejection of the representationalist response to the knowledge argument.

Sometimes we infer the moral status of an action from its nonmoral properties. Perhaps we discover that an action would lead to many deaths and conclude that it would be morally wrong. Sometimes we infer the moral status of an action from information that is itself couched in moral terms. Perhaps we know which action available to a person is morally best, and from this we infer that the person ought to perform it. Finally, we sometimes infer what someone will do, or is inclined to do, from what they believe they ought to do. These kinds of transitions – from the nonmoral to the moral, from the moral to the moral, and from the moral to the nonmoral – are familiar to everyone who considers and debates important moral questions. Moral functionalism holds that they are the heart and soul of ethical theory; they define our subject.

Abstract What kind of world do we inhabit? David Lewis was a believer in what is commonly known as the block universe answer to this question. We inhabit a huge four-dimensional aggregation in the mereological sense, and we inhabit it by being a (tiny) part of it. One way to make good sense of Lewisian views about language, belief, the necessary a posteriori, the de se, Twin Earth, and conceptual analysis is by seeing them as deriving from this view in metaphysics. Much of the discussion is set inside a possible worlds framework, but not one that distinguishes metaphysically possible worlds from conceptually or epistemically possible worlds.

This chapter by Jackson provides his reply to his famous knowledge argument against physicalism by using Armstrong-influenced discussions of colour and of perception, arguing that Armstrong’s treatment of perception in terms of the acquisition of belief is along the right lines but needs to be modified. One should think of perceptual experiences as putative responses to the world that by their very nature urge a view about how the world is. Experiences as of an object’s surface being a certain colour are, accordingly, states that urge that the object’s surface is a certain way, and an object will have that colour just if its surface is the way in question. The way itself is understood as a location in a certain kind of similarity matrix. The chapter explains Jackson’s view and discusses why he dissents from Armstrong’s well-known version of physical realism about colour, which holds that colours are physical properties of, or are physical properties closely associated with, objects’ surfaces (in the case of surface colour), reflectance profiles as it might be.

In chapter two of Coercion and the Nature of Law, Kenneth Himma sets his defence of the Coercion Thesis – the thesis that it is a conceptual truth, and not merely a practical necessity, that a legal system contains sanctions – within an account of the nature of conceptual analysis. I discuss his account, and the nature of conceptual analysis more widely, explaining why I follow Himma in accepting the Coercion Thesis. I conclude with a short discussion of where I think he misunderstands the distinction between modest conceptual and immodest conceptual analysis.

Juhani Yli-Vakkuri and John Hawthorne have recently presented a thought experiment—Mirror Man—designed to refute internalist theories of belief and content. We distinguish five ways in which the case can be interpreted and argue that on none does it refute internalism.

One way to approach the theory of reference for proper names is by asking what proper names are good for in the sense of the valuable purposes they serve. Suppose we approach ethical terms and concepts in the same spirit, asking questions like: What purposes do they serve? How could we do something similar but do it better? This chapter explores the implications of this way of thinking about ethical terms and concepts, and explains why a theory–theory or moral functionalist account of them is so attractive when we approach matters from this perspective. The discussion is set inside an avowedly cognitivist, naturalist framework, and touches on the implications of this framework for how to adjudicate debates between rival views in ethics, and the relevance of evolutionary considerations.

Consequentialism says that consequences settle what ought to be done. What does this imply for how we should decide, on some given occasion, what ought to be done in the light of our beliefs about the consequences of the actions available to us, our options? We explore the issues generated by the fact that typically there is substantial uncertainty about the consequences of the actions we need to choose between—we perforce must rely on the subjective probabilities of the possible outcomes of those actions. We distinguish objective “oughts” from expective “oughts” and note the complications that arise with compound actions—actions that have actions as parts.

Color is an incredibly controversial topic. Here is a sample of views taken seriously: colors are dispositions to look coloured; colors are physical properties of surfaces or of light; colors are properties of certain mental states, which get projected onto the surfaces of objects or onto reflected or transmitted light; colors are an illusion; colors are sui generis. One hopes to break the impasse by finding a compelling starting point—one drawing on obvious points that are common ground—which naturally evolves into the theory of color one likes. I start with remarks about the utility of having mental states with a phenomenology, remarks which are, I urge, non-controversial. I develop them into the theory of color I favor. According to it, colors are properties of objects as objective as their shapes. The final section explains how the theory handles the best argument for subjectivism about color.

David Lewis argues that believing something is self-ascribing a property rather than holding true a proposition. But what is self-ascription? Is it some new mysterious primitive? Is Lewis saying that every belief you have is about you? Several recent authors have suggested that, in the light of these questions, Lewis's theory should be rejected, despite its enormous influence. But this neglects the fact that Lewis makes two relevant proposals about belief: one about belief de se, another about belief de re. It is the second that prompts these questions but the first that is central to his theory.

We discuss how conceptual analysis – understood as the clarification and explication of 'what it takes to be a so and so' questions, of how something has to be to be a so and so – bears on issues in metaphysics, where metaphysics is understood as concerned with what there is and what it is like. We argue that conceptual analysis tells us when accounts of how things are in terms of one set of properties (or concepts) are or are not in potential conflict with accounts in terms of a putatively different set of properties; it can alert us to properties that might otherwise have escaped our attention, or to properties we might have thought incoherent; it can alert us to patterns in data that are important for prediction and explanation, and, relatedly, suggest when it would be wise to make one or another modification to the concepts we employ in prediction and explanation; and that conceptual analysis, in its 'rewriting sentences guise', can show us how to avoid unwanted ontological commitments.