tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-310405822024-03-24T05:15:00.140+11:00Knowabilitydevoted to issues modal epistemicJoe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.comBlogger101125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-13025942355182742442010-02-15T11:12:00.002+11:002010-02-15T11:38:43.863+11:00Synthese v.173, No. 1, 2010My special issue of <span style="font-style: italic;">Synthese</span>, Knowability and Beyond, is now available in its entirety <a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/j5024w270248/?p=062a5da4a6384f55b298f27aa4525b65&pi=0">online</a>. Highlights include three papers, indeed the only papers i know of, that embrace and modify Edgington's 1985 rigidifying stategy for dealing with the knowability paradox. This makes me happy since i was unable to acquire an adequate representation of her influential work in my <a href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/LogicMathematics/?view=usa&ci=9780199285495">Oxford volume</a>. Also therein you'll find a continuation of the debate between Tennant and Williamson on whether there is a knowability paradox for Cartesian restricted knowability principles, and Michael Fara's long awaited paper on the distinction between knowability and the capacity to know. And there are other great papers by Kvanvig, Hand, Routley (reprint), and Proietti and Sandu.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-19883466375653356042009-11-02T10:08:00.001+11:002009-11-02T10:11:22.455+11:00EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR PHIL SCIENCENews from Franz Huber: <br /><br />The European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA) is pleased to<br />announce the launch of its new journal:<br /><br />EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE (EJPS)<br /><br />Editor-in-Chief: Carl Hoefer (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain)<br />Deputy Editor: Mauro Dorato (University of Rome III, Italy)<br />Associate Editors: Franz Huber (Konstanz, Germany), Edouard Machery<br />(Pittsburgh, USA), Michela Massimi (London, UK), Samir Okasha (Bristol,<br />UK) and Jesús Zamora (UNED, Spain).<br />The Editorial Team will be assisted in its work by an Editorial Board of<br />highly reputed philosophers of science from around the world.<br /><br />EJPS is the official journal of EPSA and will appear three times a year,<br />beginning in January 2011. EJPS intends to publish first-rate research in<br />all areas of philosophy of science, and now welcomes submissions via the<br /><a href="http://www.editorialmanager.com/epsa">on-line portal</a>. <br /><br />The Journal’s website (still partly under construction) is <a href="http://www.springer.com/philosophy/philosophy+of+sciences/journal/13194">here</a>.<br /><br /><br />European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA): http://www.epsa.ac.atJoe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-79203382078193588622009-10-27T04:38:00.000+11:002009-10-27T04:40:01.882+11:00The 2010 Synthese ConferenceI just received this from Vincent Hendricks<br /><br />On April 15th and 16th of 2010, the Synthese Conference will take place at Columbia University. The 2010 edition of the Synthese Conference will focus on the theme of epistemology and economics. Recent years have seen an increasing amount of interaction between epistemology and economics: traditional topics in epistemology, such as the analysis of knowledge, have found a significant role in the study of interactive decision making, while traditional topics in economics, such as the analysis of rationality, now figure prominently into certain areas of epistemology. We anticipate that the conference program will include slots for five invited papers and at least five contributed papers. Every paper that is presented at the conference will be considered for the special issue of Synthese that will be based on the conference theme of epistemology and economics. The list of invited speakers is still being finalized. In the meantime, we encourage submissions for the contributed slots. Submissions should be relevant to the conference theme of epistemology and economics, broadly construed, and should satisfy the usual guidelines for submissions to Synthese. Submissions for the contributed slots must be received no later than February 1, 2010. Notifications of acceptance will be made by February 20, 2010. All submissions should be sent to synthese.conference.2010@gmail.com .Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-19158029794748908122009-10-19T06:04:00.003+11:002009-10-19T06:37:56.143+11:00Editorial UpdatesThanks to those of you still staying tuned to Knowability. Hope to get back to posting some philosophy in the near future. For now two pieces of news that i'm happy to report. <br /><br />My special issue of Synthese, Knowability and Beyond, is slowing becoming available online as the authors get their proofs back to the publisher. Here's <a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/u6616263r684xu26/">my introduction</a>. Also currently available from the issue is Michael Hand's paper, "<a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/q401mq1434014t5l/?p=14dab2f5c5354d41965eca5ec08f296c&pi=0">Anti-realism and Universal Knowability</a>", which utilizes the typically overlooked difference between pragmatic and non-pragmatic reasons for the unperformability of a proof. <br /><br />Also, <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/LogicMathematics/?view=usa&ci=9780199285495">New Essays on the Knowability Paradox</a></span>, became available in August. That project was a labor of love, taking 6 years to get to print. It includes Alonzo Church's two referee reports on Fitch's 1945 paper regarding Fitch's counterfactual definition of value, and includes the first two formulations of the knowability paradox. The volume includes a reprint of Fitch's 1963 paper, where the result was first published, and 19 new essays covering various aspects of the discussion.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-7564129413950835702009-10-18T03:00:00.002+11:002009-10-18T03:11:32.150+11:00Crispin's New Research ProgramThe <a href="http://www.abdn.ac.uk/philosophy/nip/">Northern Institute of Philosophy</a> now exists. This is the new research program directed by Crispin Wright. The structure and mission of the program is outlined on the website, and will include the launching of a new journal, provisionally titled The Northern Light, that will specialize in short sharply focused papers.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-37788027765241343062009-01-28T11:54:00.002+11:002009-01-28T12:08:59.178+11:00PhilPapersAn incredible resource for published and unpublished online philosophy papers was just made public by Dave Chalmers at the Centre for Consciousness. Having had the opportunity to test drive <a href="http://philpapers.org/">PhilPapers</a> before the launch, I can say without hesitation that it is by far the best resource we have in our field for tracking the most recent and not so recent papers in any area of philosophy. More info on <a href="http://fragments.consc.net/djc/2009/01/philp.html">Dave's blog</a>.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-50469882023597656222008-09-22T14:53:00.002+10:002008-09-22T15:06:46.951+10:00SEP Entry Revised<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://knowability.googlepages.com/ParadoxChurch.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/ParadoxChurch.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />My <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fitch-paradox/">Stanford Encyclopedia entry</a> on the Church-Fitch paradox of knowability (coauthored with Berit) was recently updated and is now online.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-47053202855838418672008-09-08T13:37:00.004+10:002008-09-08T16:40:33.885+10:00Epistemology: 5 QuestionsVincent Hendricks and Duncan Pritchard just published a really fun book of interviews with leading epistemologists. It's called <i>Epistemology: 5 Questions</i>. Here are the 5 questions: <br /><ul><li>Why were you initially drawn to epistemology (and what keeps you interested)?<br /><li>What do you see as being your main contributions to epistemology?<br /><li>What do you think is the proper role of epistemology in relation to other areas of philosophy and other academic disciplines?<br /><li>What do you consider to be the most neglected topics and/or contributions in contemporary epistemology?<br /><li>What do you think the future of epistemology will (or should) hold?<br /></ul>Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-23839522109384285972008-08-18T20:35:00.006+10:002008-08-19T01:22:52.709+10:00Mmm. Sweet and Sour Humans Again<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FgMn2OJmx3w&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FgMn2OJmx3w&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Just posted this on my <a href="http://knowability.googlepages.com/atrocities">human rights and atrocities montage</a>. Found it relevant and a good excuse to exhibit the beautiful yet disturbing Grace Jones, who hasn't shared any recordings since 1989.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-55943913279895639952008-06-20T14:04:00.004+10:002008-06-20T15:33:59.060+10:00Choice and Necessary Implicaton: or How to Beat a Torture RapYesterday Trenton Merricks gave a great talk on Truth and Freedom. He argued that a class of fatalist arguments of the form below are question begging and that their first premise is false. <br /><blockquote>1. It was true a thousand years ago that Jones sits at time t (where t is a few moments from now), and Jones has no choice about that fact.<br><br />2. Necessarily, if it was true a thousand years ago that Jones sits at t, then Jones sits at t. <br><br />Therefore, <br><br />3. Jones has no choice about his sitting at t. <br /> </blockquote><br />He demonstrated his point by replacing all occurrences of 'was true a thousand years ago' with 'will be true a thousand years from now'. <br /><br />My own reaction is that both arguments are invalid. They fallaciously rest on the principle that failing to have a choice (regarding the truth of a proposition) is closed under necessary implication. Let NC be the factive operator 'has no choice that', so that 'sNC(p)' says 'it is true that p, but person s has no choice about it'. Then the above argument has the following form: <br /><blockquote>1*. sNC(p)<br><br />2*. Necessarily, p implies q.<br><br />Therefore, <br><br />3*. sNC(q)<br /></blockquote><br /><br />We see that this is an instance of the closure principle. But counterexamples to the principle are not hard to find. Let p be the true proposition that person A at time t has tortured some detainees at Gitmo. B clearly has no choice about p (because B doesn't know about A's activities). But our proposition (that p) necessarily implies that somebody at some time tortured some detainees at Gitmo. It would follow by the above argument that B had no choice about whether somebody at some time was tortured at Gitmo. However, B himself tortured some detainees there, and so did in fact have a choice about whether some detainees were tortured.<br /><br />A defense of the Merricks analysis over the one favored here might include the following objection. Even though B had a choice about torturing detainees he did in fact torture, he didn't have a choice about whether <i>some</i> detainees were tortured. After all, he had no choice about what others would do without his knowledge, and those others happened to torture some people. The problem with this objection is that it entails that neither A nor B had a choice about whether some detainees were tortured (even though, we may suppose, A and B were the only ones willfully torturing). More generally, nobody ever has a choice about any existential proposition that more than one person makes true! In sum, if we supposed NO-Choice is closed under necessary implication, we've already conceded too much to the fatalist.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-91919727573799583062008-05-07T11:56:00.002+10:002008-05-07T12:02:23.135+10:00Glitter and DoomAs many of you may know, Tom Waits doesn't tour much. But when he does it is super entertaining. He's passing through a number of cities soon, including St Louis at the Fox Theater on June 26. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EOrG1r3S6ZA"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EOrG1r3S6ZA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-43069893945466979912008-04-11T15:06:00.002+10:002008-04-11T15:12:28.281+10:00Madison EpistemologyCouple great epistemology conferences approaching in Madison:<br /><br /><a href="http://philosophy.wisc.edu/comesana/mec.html">Wisconsin Epistemology Workshop</a> is taking place on the UW-Madison campus May 3-4, featuring Earl Conee, Richard Feldman, Ernie Sosa, Alvin Goldman, Timothy Williamson, and (as commentator) Jim Pryor. This conference is organized by Juan Comesana, and is sponsored by The Anonymous Fund and the Berent Enc fund of the UW-Madison Philosophy Department.<br /><br />The <a href="http://socrates.berkeley.edu/%7Efitelson/few/">Fifth Annual Formal Epistemology Workshop</a> takes place on the UW-Madison campus May 15-18. The workshop is sponsored by the Philosophy Departments at UW-Madison, Berkeley, UT-Austin, and Carnegie Mellon.<br /><br />[HT: Sandy Goldberg]<br /><a href="http://socrates.berkeley.edu/%7Efitelson/few/" target="_blank"></a>Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-65548098647113410512008-04-07T20:08:00.002+10:002008-04-07T20:13:43.808+10:00Knowability and BeyondMy issue of Synthese is now finalized. I've included below the contents and a link to my introduction. I expect it to go into production in the near future. <br /><br />SYNTHESE: Knowability and Beyond<br /><ul><li><a href="http://knowability.googlepages.com/SyntheseIntro.pdf">Editor's Introduction</a></li><li>"Williamson's Woes" Neil Tennant (OSU)</li><li>"Antirealism and Universal Knowability" Michael Hand (Texas A&M)</li><li>"Possible Knowledge of Unknown Truth" Dorothy Edgington (Oxford)</li><li>"Knowability and the Capacity to Know" Michael Fara (Princeton)</li><li>"Fitch's Paradox and Ceteris Paribus Modalities" Carlo Proietti (Paris) and Gabriel Sandu (Paris)</li><li>"The Incarnation and the Knowability Paradox" Jonathan Kvanvig (Baylor)</li><li>"Necessary Limits to Knowledge: Unknowable Truths" Richard Routley Sylvan (ANU) [REPRINT]</li></ul>Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-13173556491201346462008-02-20T20:52:00.005+11:002008-02-22T01:12:11.986+11:00Must and CanIn “<a href="http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/Tc2NjA1M/must_can_new.pdf">Modals and Conditionals Again</a>” Angelica <a href="http://people.umass.edu/kratzer/">Kratzer</a> treats natural language ‘must’ as the expression of a two-place relation between a premise set and a proposition. The trick is getting the relation straight. Consider the following 'must' claims: <br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">Deontic</span>: “One must not microwave kittens!”<br><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Doxastic</span>: “In light of what Jack mistakenly believes, Jill must be in love with him.<br> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Epistemic</span>: “Oh…, the gun must have been loaded.”<br><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Dispositional</span>: “If you must smoke, then please use an ashtray (and not my rhododendra)”<br><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Bouletic</span>: “You must wear that fabulous dress”</blockquote><br /> For Kratzer the two-place relation is 'must in view of', giving <br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">Deontic</span>: “In view of our duties, one must not incinerate kittens”<br><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Doxastic</span>: In view of what Jack mistakenly believes, Jill must be in love with him.<br> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Epistemic</span>: “In view of what we now know, the gun must have been loaded.”<br><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Dispositional</span>: “If, in view of what you are disposed to do, you must smoke, then use an ashtray”<br><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Bouletic</span>: “In view of what my preferences state, you must wear that fab dress”<br /></blockquote><br />The natural way to read these claims is as follows:<br /><br /><center>'In view of premise set A it must be that p' is true iff <br />p follows from A. </center><br />And the corresponding dual operator 'can' is read: <br /><br /><center>In view of A it can/might/may be that p iff<br />p is compatible with A.</center><br />Two well-known problems emerge for this sort of semantics. First it forces a vacuous reading of 'must' claims that relate a proposition to an <i>inconsistent</i> premise set. And second, it gives rise to all sorts of unwelcome modal collapses, and relatedly, forces a vacuous reading of 'must' claims that relate <i>non-contingent</i> propositions to premise sets. In my talk at <a href="http://knowability.blogspot.com/2008/02/epistemology-at-beach.html">Kioloa</a>, I criticized a proposal by Kratzer for dealing with the first problem. I then argued that the two problems are related and sketched a unified solution.<br /><br />Kratzer's proposal tells us that ‘musts’ and ‘cans’ follow from the appropriate consistent subsets of the given premise set. More specifically, let A be an inconsistent premise set of, say, legal judgments. <br /><center>A = {p, ~p, q}</center>And let X be the set of all A’s consistent subsets.<br /><center>X = {ø, {p}, {~p}, {q}, {p, q}, {~p, q}}</center>Kratzer’s proposal says: <br /><br /> <center>"In view of A, it must be that p" is true iff <br />each set in X has a superset in X from which p follows.</center><br />The problem with inconsistent premise sets, of course, is that they entail everything. However, it is false that each set in X has a superset in X from which an arbitrary proposition follows. So, unlike the natural proposal with which we began, Kratzer's proposal doesn't predict the absurd claim that, in view of the law, we must commit murder.<br /><br />However, the restriction not only blocks the application of 'must' to arbitrary propositions, but it blocks the application of 'must' to any contradicted premise. So claims like the following are predicted to be false: <br /><blockquote>"In view of what Graham believes, the Liar sentence must be true"<br />"In view of what Graham believes, the Liar sentence must not be true".</blockquote>Moreover, Kratzer's proposal always blocks the application of 'must' to premises responsible for the inconsistency and it sometimes blocks the application of 'must' to important consequences that (at least partially) depend on at least one of the contradicted premises. <br /><br />Here's an example of the latter type of case. White House chief of staff “Scooter” Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice and making false claims to federal investigators during the CIA leak investigation. Bush commuted his prison sentence from 33 months to 0 on the grounds that any term of imprisonment for such nonviolent first offenses by experienced government service employees is too harsh. This contradicts US federal sentencing guidelines and practice, which prescribe hard time for such offenders. In view of federal sentencing guidelines, what now must be prescribed for the sentencing of a like criminal c for like crimes? It would be irresponsible to let Bush’s incompetence and nepotism overly influence the federal justice system. Hence, in view of federal sentencing guidelines, c must do hard time. <br /><br />But Kratzer’s view doesn’t predict this. For it depends on at least one contradicted legal judgment---viz., criminals of this sort are to do hard time. And when that is the case, it will be false that, for each consistent subset of the sentencing guidelines, there will be a superset among them from which it follows that c is to do hard time.<br /><br />A second problem with the Kratzer proposal is that it says nothing about what to do when the proposition p fails to be a contingent matter. When p is necessarily true, then it follows from every set. Therefore, in every context, p must be the case. For instance, the view predicts that, in view of what Michael (the intuitionist) believes, excluded middle is correct. But Michael the intuitionist denies the unrestricted truth of excluded middle. To pick another example of this kind, we want to say that Obama might actually win in November. But suppose in fact Hillary wins. Then in view of what we know it must be that Hillary actually wins. That's because 'Hillary actually wins' is necessarily true (if true). So, in view of what we know, it must be that actually Hillary will win. But then, by the duality of the operators, it is false that in view of what we know Obama might actually win. <br /><br />The problem of inconsistent premise sets and the problem of collapsed modals are at root the same problem. In each case we assume that the deontic/doxastic/epistemic/legal/bouletic "possibilities" are a subset of the logical possibilities. And that is not how it should be. After all, in view of what we know, it may be that Goldbach’s conjecture is false. Ex hypothesi, it’s true. And, for all we knew before the telescope, Hesperus might not have been Phosphorus. And, for all we know right now, Obama might actually be the next US president. Ex hypothesi, Clinton wins. <br /><br />The view I proposed in Kioloa was this:<br /><br /><center>'In view of A, it must be that p' is true <br />iff <br />all the relevantly similar (possible or impossible) A-worlds are p-worlds.<br /><br />'In view of A, it can be that p' is true <br />iff <br />some relevantly similar (possible or impossible) <br />A-worlds are p-worlds.</center><br />I treat 'musts' as counterfactuals because the corresponding strict conditional, which would quantify over all possible and impossible worlds, would be too strong and rarely (if ever) come out true. The corresponding 'can' claims would be too weak and would usually (if not always) come out true. The important insight is that, with the introduction of impossible worlds, we drop the assumption that the relevant accessibility relation is a subset of S4/S5 accessibility. In so doing, we block the familiar modal collapses and the special problems of inconsistent premise sets, and we get that much closer to the correct understanding of 'must and 'can'.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-11971544104182206912008-02-19T10:58:00.008+11:002008-02-19T14:49:33.694+11:00Epistemology Beach Update<table style="width:194px;"><tr><td align="center" style="height:194px;background:url(http://picasaweb.google.com/f/img/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/PhilosophyConferences/EpistemologyAtTheBeach"><img src="http://lh5.google.co.uk/PhilosophyConferences/R7o3oXUes7E/AAAAAAAABqA/Dr7yUb3E-do/s160-c/EpistemologyAtTheBeach.jpg" width="160" height="160" style="margin:1px 0 0 4px;"></a></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/PhilosophyConferences/EpistemologyAtTheBeach" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">Epistemolo<wbr></wbr>gy at the Beach</a></td></tr></table>Below is an update on what the <a href="http://knowability.blogspot.com/2008/02/epistemology-at-beach.html">workshop</a> participants were going on about. Pics are <a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/PhilosophyConferences/EpistemologyAtTheBeach">here</a>, and <a href="http://anuedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15837&id=588733005">here</a>. <br /><br />Patrick Greenough argued that Stanley's certainty account of assertion doesn't work. Among the counterexamples were warranted assertions of future contingents, for which the relevant brand of certainty is virtually impossible to achieve. <br /><br />I responded to some of Angelica Kratzer's recent work on 'must' and 'can'. Kratzer thinks about 'must' claims as 'must in view of claims'. (Will post on some of this soon.) The view I defended was this: 'In view of premise set A, it must be that p' is true iff 'p' is true at all the relevantly similar (possible or impossible) A-worlds. This gives us the right predictions for cases of inconsistent premise sets and awkward cases where p is not a contingent matter (e.g., "in view of what Dummett believes it must be that excluded middle is false"). <br /><br />Yuri Cath argued against the view that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that. The strategy was to construct cases of knowledge-how (e.g., knowledge how to juggle) for which the relevant corresponding beliefs (e.g., that w is a way to juggle) are Gettiered or corresponding justification for such beliefs is defeated. <br /><br />Brent Madison discussed the question of whether causation is necessary for epistemic basing. He argued that contrary to what is presupposed in much of the literature on basing relations, Lehrer's case of the gypsy lawyer doesn't undermine the requirement. <br /><br />Stephen Hetherington disagreed with the orthodox belief that all Gettier cases are cases of knowledge failure. The discussion was driven by a pretheoretic intuition about the kind of luck that generates Gettier's original cases. <br /><br />Declan Smithies defended a JJ-principle---viz., one is justified in believing p only if one is justified in believing that one is justified in believing that p. He argued that it explains various Moorean paradoxes and the role of justification in critical reflection. <br /><br />Dave Chalmers sought an epistemic constraint on truth that avoids the Church-Fitch paradox of knowability. Dave takes it that each basic truth is knowable by somebody. Let 'b' express the conjunction of all the basic truths. All non-basic truths are knowable in the sense that someone is in a position to know that p is materially implied by b. <br /><br />Daniel Star defended his view that a fact X is a reason for an agent N to F just when X is evidence that N ought to F. <br /><br />Berit discussed the knowledge argument (construed as an argument against a priori physicalism). She defended it against a number of objections, including the old fact reply and the missing concepts reply. <br /><br />Wolfgang Schwartz took issue with the standard interpretation of Frank Arntzenius' example of the traveler who in fact passed the mountains on her way to Shangri-La. It is usually treated as a case where the traveler must eventually update to .5 her credence that she came by way of the mountains, lest she violate the principle of Indifference. Wo, by contrast, defended the view that she should retain the credence she had when passing the mountains (viz. 1), lest she violate Conditionalization and Reflection. <br /><br />Jonathan Schaffer closed the workshop with a paper about a brand of skepticism which threatens the broadest range of knowledge. Knowledge entails basing. Hence, any knowledge (even a priori knowledge and the cogito) is threatened by the debasing demon who, at the final stage of the basing process, intervenes to make it the case that the otherwise properly based belief is based on a guess or wishful thinking. The demon covers his tracks by leaving the victim with no indication that the normal process has been tampered with.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-72535749397663690722008-02-15T01:56:00.003+11:002008-02-19T12:14:35.154+11:00Epistemology at the BeachEpistemology at the Beach is a workshop this weekend hosted by Dave Chalmers' <a href="http://consciousness.anu.edu.au/">Centre for Consciousness</a> and Daniel Stoljar's Basic Knowledge grant and organized by <a href="http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/people-defaults/dsmithies/index.php3">Declan Smithies</a>. The location is the ANU Coastal Campus. I'll try to blog the event. <br /><br />Participants: Jonathan Schaffer, Patrick Greenough, Berit Brogaard, Joe Salerno, Brent Madison, Yuri Cath, Wolfgang Schwartz, Declan Smithies, Daniel Star, David Chalmers, Stephen Hetherington, Daniel Stoljar, Susanna Schellenberg, David Bourget, Aisling Crean, JC Bjerring, John Cusbert, Holly Lawford-Smith, Masafumi Matsumoto, Doug Edwards, Federico Luzzi, Paul Dimmock, Grant Reaber, Fiona MacPherson and Stuart X.<br /><center><br />Talks<br>Friday</center><br />Patrick Greenough: Assertion, Knowledge and Certainty<br />Joe Salerno: Must and Can<br /><br /><center>Saturday</center><br />Yuri Cath: Knowing How Without Knowing That<br />Brent Madison: Causation and the Epistemic Basing Relation<br />Stephen Hetherington: Gettiered Knowledge<br />Declan Smithies: Critical Reflection and Epistemic Responsibility<br />David Chalmers: Knowability and Scrutability<br /><br /><center>Sunday</center><br />Daniel Star: Reasons: Explanations or Evidence?<br />Berit Brogaard: On the Knowledge Argument<br />Wolfgang Schwartz: I’m Certain That I Went By The Mountains<br />Jonathan Schaffer: The Debasing DemonJoe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-16961616885702767432008-02-05T20:01:00.000+11:002008-02-05T21:11:32.132+11:00John Hawthorne: Wade Memorial Lecturer<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/PerceptionConference1.jpg"><br><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/PerceptionConference2.jpg"><br><br /><center>For more info contact John Greco<br>jgreco2 AT slu DOT edu<br /></td></tr><br /></center>Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-6601739364187949302008-01-21T13:39:00.000+11:002008-01-23T23:34:55.059+11:00Intuitionist Truth and the Paradox of IdealizationWhat I did in my commentary at the Eastern APA is frame a debate about Fitch's paradox, and explain the significance of <a href="http://osu.facebook.com/profile.php?id=12439995&ref=ts">Salvatore Florio</a> and <a href="http://j.murzi.googlepages.com/julienmurzi">Julien Murzi</a>’s contribution to the intuitionistic reply. Along the way I tried to improve on their main argument. <br /><br />Consider the following epistemic theories of truth, which are supposed to differ <br />precisely on the strength of the advertised relation between truth and knowledge. <br /><br /><blockquote>Semantic Idealism (SI): <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">p(p <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Kp) <br /><br />Necessarily, all truths are in fact known (by some finite being at some time).<br /></blockquote><br /><blockquote><br />Strict Finitism (SF): <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">p(p <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> FKp)<br /><br />Necessarily, all truths are feasibly knowable = necessarily, all truths are are knowable by beings who have precisely the cognitive capacities that we at some time happen to have. </blockquote><br /><blockquote>Moderate Anti-realism/Weak Verificationism (WVER): <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">p(p <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/diamond.gif">Kp)<br /><br />Necessarily, all truths are knowable by us in principle (i.e., by beings whose capacities are at best finitely better than those we happen to have). <br /></blockquote><br />And consider the following brand of realism, which denies all three positions. <br /><br /><blockquote>Realism (R): <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/diamond.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">p(p & ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/diamond.gif">Kp)<br />There may be unknowable truths---i.e., truths that couldn’t be known given any finite extension of our cognitive capacities. </blockquote><br /><br />The three brands of anti-realism appear to be listed in the order of their logical strength, from strongest to weakest. (SI) entails (SF) entails (WVER), and the entailments are not meant to go the other way. Indeed, (WVER) gains its plausibility to the extent that it can distance itself from awkward forms of idealism and strict finitism. <br /><br />The Church-Fitch paradox is a proof that threatens to show that moderate antirealism collapses into idealism. A classical formulation of Florio and Murzi’s paradox of idealization (presented at the APA) threatens to show that (WVER) collapses into (SF). The lesson of either is that so-called "moderate anti-realism" is an inherently unstable position. In the context of that epistemic theory of truth, the apparently modest idealization is equivalent to at least one of the immodest idealizations. Simply put, a so-called moderate anti-realist can’t distinguish between actual knowledge, feasible knowability, and knowability in principle. <br /><br />I put the lessons this way for simplicity of exposition, although stating them as I <br />have presupposes excluded middle. The Florio-Murzi proof aims to draw related lessons without excluded middle, and thereby aims to show that an independent commitment to intuitionistic logic can't rescue the moderate anti-realist from the grips of Fitch-like paradoxes. <br /><br />The key concept in the Florio-Murzi discussion is the concept of an <i>ideal agent</i>. They define it as any finite agent whose epistemic capacities are better than our own. Their proof requires that it be a priori that there are no ideal agents. Since humans may be cosmic hicks, as it were, F and M must not mean "human capacities" by "our capacities". After all, it is an a posteriori matter whether there are beings in the universe with epistemic capacities better than those of humans. So I take it that by 'ideal agent' they mean any finite agent whose capacities are better than any actual finite agent. This provides the desired strength to the first premise of the Florio-Murzi proof:<br /><blockquote>1. There are no ideal agents.</blockquote> <br /><br />The second and most critical assumption in the Florio-Murzi proof is that <br />there is a truth q that isn’t feasibly knowable. Indeed, their assumption requires that it be <i>necessary</i> that anyone who knows q is an ideal agent. Call this assumption <i>epistemic modesty</i>. It is presumed that even the moderate intuitionistic anti-realist is epistemically modest in this sense. <br /><blockquote><br />2. (Epistemic Modesty) There is a feasibly unknowable truth; that is, a truth such that necessarily any being that knows it is ideal: <br /><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">q(q & <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kxq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix)) <br /></blockquote><br />Epistemic modesty is meant to be a more precise denial of Strict Finitism. F and M foreshadow the following kind of objection to (Epistemic Modesty). Can't we have a cognitive twin in a world with a more favorable set of epistemic resources or environment? In such a world subjects with our cognitive capacities are in a position to know q, even though we in the actual world are not. Beings internally like us, but in improved external circumstances, acquire knowledge more easily than we do. For instance, suppose that cognitive limitations prevent any actual being from determining the location of a particular distant star. Nevertheless, there will be possible worlds where our telescopes are better or the cosmic environment for whatever reason better preserves the brightness of stars over longer distances. In such worlds, beings with precisely our cognitive capacities come to know a truth that is feasibly unknowable in the actual world. <br /><br />Such considerations threaten the plausibility of (Epistemic Modesty). I don’t believe that Florio and Murzi said enough in their paper to dispel the worry. But here is a quick fix. Redefine an ideal agent more generally as one who has a finitely improved <i>epistemic state of information</i>, where states of information include the subject’s cognitive capacities, resources and environment. And let q be a truth that can’t be known by beings in any actual epistemic state of information. Then (Epistemic Modesty) is more intuitive. When q is a truth that we're not in a position to know (owing to our cognitive, material and environmental limitations), then by definition knowing q necessitates being in a better epistemic state. That is, necessarily, if x knows q then x is an ideal agent in that she is epistemically better off---i.e., she has either increased cognitive capacities, better epistemic resources, or a more epistemically friendly environment. <br /><br /><br />With these adjustments the Florio-Murzi proof is much stronger. It has the following structure. Assumptions I through III entail a contradiction: <br /><br /><blockquote>I. (No Ideal Agents) There are no ideal agents.<br />~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx <br /><br />II. (Epistemic Modesty): There is a feasibly unknowable truth. <br /><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">q(q & <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kxq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix)) <br /><br />III. (WVER): All truths are knowable in principle. <br /><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">p(p <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/diamond.gif">Kp)</blockquote> <br />An illuminating version of the proof goes like this: <br /><table><br /><tr><td width=15%>Rests On</td><td width=45%>Premise</td><td>Justifiction</td></tr> <br /><tr><td>0</td><td>0. <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">p(p <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/diamond.gif">Kp) </td><td> [WVER]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>1. ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx </td><td> [No Ideal Agents]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>2. q </td><td> [A for CP]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>3. <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kxq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix) </td><td> [A for Reductio]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>4. <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kxq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix) </td><td> [from 3]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>5. Kaq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ia </td><td> [from 4]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>6. Ka(q & ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx) </td><td> [A for reductio]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>7. Kaq & Ka~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx </td><td> [6 by K-distributivity]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>8. Kaq </td><td> [from 7]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>3,6</td><td>9. Ia </td><td> [from 5 and 8]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>3,6</td><td>10. <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx </td><td> [from 9]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>11. q & ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx </td><td> [6 by K-factivity]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>12. ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx </td><td> [from 11]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>3,6</td><td>13. Contradiction </td><td> [from 10 and 12]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>14. ~Ka(q & ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx) </td><td> [6-13 by reductio]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>15. <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif">~Ka(q & ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx)</td><td> [from 3, 4-14, since only necessities follow from necessities]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>16. ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/diamond.gif">Ka(q & ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx)</td><td> [15 by def. of <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/diamond.gif">]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>0</td><td>17. (q & ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx) <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/diamond.gif">Ka(q & ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx) </td><td> [from 0]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>0,3</td><td>18. ~(q & ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx)</td><td> [from 16, 17]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>1,2</td><td>19. q & ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">xIx </td><td> [from 1, 2]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>0,1,2,3</td><td>20. Contradiction </td><td> [18, 19]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>0,1,2</td><td>21. ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kxq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix) </td><td> [3-20 by Reductio]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>0,1</td><td>22. q <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kxq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix) </td><td> [2-21 by CP]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>0,1</td><td>23. <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">q(q <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kxq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix)) </td><td> [22 by <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">-Intro]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>24</td><td>24. <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">q(q & <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kxq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix))</td><td> [Epistemic Modesty]<br /></td></tr><tr><td>0,1,24</td><td>25. Contradiction </td><td> [from 23 and 24]</td></tr><br /></table><br />As F and M point out, the proof is intuitionistically valid. However, I don’t think it gains any ground, over and above Fitch's paradox, against the intuitionistic strategy. The intuitionist is happy to deny the epistemic modesty principle---i.e., that there are feasibly unknowable truths: <br /><br />i. ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">q(q & <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kxq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix)) <br /><br />After all, existence for the intuitionist is constructive existence, and we can’t construct an example of a feasibly unknowable truth. <br /><br />The typical charge against this sort of maneuver is epistemic hubris. But the typical reply is for the intuitionist to regain her modesty by replacing the original modest assumption with a claim that is classically but not intuitionistically equivalent. For instance, she might deny that every truth is feasibly knowable: <br /><br />ii. ~<img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">q(q <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/diamond.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/exists.gif">x(Kxq & ~Ix))<br /><br />Classically i. and ii. contradict. But not intuitionistically. There are more intuitionistic distinctions than there are classical distinctions, and the intuitionist usually takes advantage of this fact. Contrary to what I thought at the APA, the move won't work in this case, since ii contradicts line 23 of the proof. Line 23 rests only upon WVER and No Ideal Agents. <br /><br />The intuitionist at this point might chose some other more complicated classically (but not intuitionistically) equivalent formula with which to express her modesty. Surely there is at least one that doesn't intuitionistically contradict line 23. The move should be followed with an explanation of why this, rather than the original formula, best expresses her epistemic modesty. <br /><br />There is, however, a recommendation to preempt this intuitionistic maneuver. It is based on a suggestion raised by F and M in their paper. First and foremost, don’t assume the existence of a feasibly unknowable truth. Instead begin with a proposition that would be feasibility knowable, regardless of its truth value. For instance, let q be the sentence ”There is life on x”, where x is some planet that is epistemically inaccessible in the relevant sense. Our cognitive capacities, or overall epistemic state of information, is inadequate for the determination of whether or not q. So we should be modest about q and about ~q. The commitment is to a proposition q such that: necessarily if an agent knows q then she is ideal, and necessarily if an agent knows ~q then she is ideal. <br /><br />iii. <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kxq <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix) <br />iv. <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/box.gif"><img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/forall.gif">x(Kx~q <img src="http://knowability.googlepages.com/imp.gif"> Ix) <br /><br />Notice that we don’t presuppose the constructive existence of a feasibly unknowable truth. But we still get a contradiction. Line 23, which rests just on WVER and NO IDEAL AGENTS, shows us that the assumption q together with iii jointly entail a contradiction. Hence, ~q. And by analogous reasoning ~q and iv jointly entail a contradiction. <br /><br />If the intuitionist already has some other way of expressing her modesty she can give up at least one of iii and iv. She is still not committed to Strict Finitism, but she will be committed to some principle classically, but not intuitionistically, equivalent to Strict Finitism. There is logical space for her to do so. But she will have to tell some complicated story to regain an epistemically modest footing. <br /><br />Contrary to what I thought at the APA, I don't believe that the Florio-Murzi paradox of idealization raises new difficulties for moderate intuitionistic anti-realism---that is, difficulties over and above those already raised by the Church-Fitch paradox. However, I think it highlights the significance of knowability paradoxes more generally. Such paradoxes show us that if we treat truth as an epistemic notion, then we blur modal epistemic distinctions that are needed to make such theories plausible.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-24564381904238929512008-01-14T04:17:00.000+11:002008-12-09T16:21:58.774+11:00Both Kinds of Philosophy: Country and Western<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LhMf0lxXQPc/R42s0IXYx3I/AAAAAAAAJxY/vqPxodC0Oo0/s1600-h/MacFarlane.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LhMf0lxXQPc/R42s0IXYx3I/AAAAAAAAJxY/vqPxodC0Oo0/s320/MacFarlane.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155967160007837554" /></a><br />More updates from the <a href="http://aoc.web.arizona.edu/">Arizona Ontology conference</a>. Our pictures are on <a href="http://anuedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16565&l=03f89&id=549725974">our Facebook</a>. Carrie Jenkins has great pics on <a href="http://nottinghamac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25950&l=42942&id=557057521">her page</a>. <br /><br />John MacFarlane, seen here, defends a paper co-written with Niko Kolodny, in which they argue that there isn't a subjective 'ought' for deliberation and a separate objective 'ought' for advice. Rather, there is just one assessment-sensitive 'ought' that can explain it's dual role in deliberation and advice. <br /><br />Daniel Nolan argued that, of nomological necessity, there are no quantities in between the fixed quantities that quantum physics deals with. There is a physically important sense in which the hydrogen atom, jumping from -13.6eV to -3.4eV, couldn't have passed through states -10eV or -5.1eV. The fundamtental quantities of quantum reality are discrete. <br /><br />The thesis of Ted Sider's paper was that neither existence monism nor priority monism has legs. For instance, priority monism, the thesis that no natural features are had by any object other than the world-object, entails that every sub-world object has all the same natural features, both intrinsic and extrinsic. To make a long story short, priority monism can't explain the rich structure of the universe. <br /><br />Jenann Ismael gave an exciting paper arguing that the notion of objective chance appears in physics much earlier than most philosophers suppose. It is implicit even in classical mechanics! Indeed, it was argued, that one can't do physics without ruling out various possibilities in a way that is guided by objective chance. <br /><br />Berit and I discussed essence, limit assumptions about relevance, and our impossible worlds approach to counterfactuals. Overall, the conference was philosophically very rich and a great deal of fun.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-41317918687244425322008-01-11T11:44:00.000+11:002008-12-09T16:21:58.918+11:00Ontology Western Style<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LhMf0lxXQPc/R4lhCIXYx2I/AAAAAAAAJxQ/nBr859UtjJM/s1600-h/Photo+162.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LhMf0lxXQPc/R4lhCIXYx2I/AAAAAAAAJxQ/nBr859UtjJM/s200/Photo+162.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154757937735452514" /></a><br />This is a live post from the <a href="http://aoc.web.arizona.edu/participants.html">Arizona Ontology Conference</a>, hosted by the department of philosophy at the University of Arizona and organized by <a href="http://www.u.arizona.edu/~lapaul/">Laurie Paul</a> and her assistant <a href="http://www.u.arizona.edu/~sjbern/CurriculumVitae.html">Sara Bernstein</a>. Thomas Hofweber is currently defending his "Ambitious Yet Modest Metaphysics", which attempts to explain how to do ontology without deferring completely and reverently to the sciences and without embracing the special technical notions from metaphysics. <br /><br />Earlier in the conference. Brian Weatherson offered a view prescribing that we not explain causative relations (e.g., those expressed by 'opened', 'killed', 'broke', 'saved', etc.) in terms of causation but rather explain causation in terms of such causative relations. The disjunctive account says that c causes e iff either (1) e counterfactually depends on c or (2) an agent of c stands in a causative relation to an e state. There was much discussion about how to demarcate the class of causatives, including persuasive commentary from Elizabeth Barnes. <br /><br />Hilary Greaves gave us an education in physics while defending a paper that she co-authored with Frank Arntzenius. The paper explores some of Richard Feynman's ideas in the context of a recent debate about time reversal in classical electromagnetism. <br /><br />Andy Egan argued that disputes about taste hang on self-attributions of dispositional properties. The function of disagreements about taste is to get one's interlocutor to self-attribute such properties. The thesis was to explain why disputes about taste are defective (when they are defective) in terms of this key role played by taste claims. <br /><br />The after dinner talk last night was given by Robin Jeshion She argued that, in the context of naive realism, descriptivism can't work since it does such a lousy job at capturing spatial representational content. <br /><br />More to come, including pictorial evidence of the festivities.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-54969835254705347822007-12-22T23:24:00.000+11:002007-12-23T00:02:26.831+11:00"God bless us, every one!"Berit says I should get my ass back on my blog. So here's the update. Christmas in Jersey with the family. There are rumors of a reunion with the Brooklyn side. They usually like to add a little coffee to their sambuca, so I expect it to be colorful. Giving commentary about intuitionistic truth at the APA. Will post on that soon. Looking forward to catching up with friends in Baltimore, although I'll be pretty busy with my department's metaphysics hire. May spend some time in NY and then off to Tucson for what I expect to be a very intense <a href="http://aoc.web.arizona.edu/">ontology conference</a>. Berit and I will ride horses across the desert in the rain and discuss our counterfactual theory of essential properties.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-2902453041676579452007-12-06T11:01:00.000+11:002007-12-23T00:05:15.780+11:00ANU offers to Schellenberg and SouthwoodANU recently delivered offers to <a href="http://rsss.anu.edu.au/~susanna/">Susanna Schellenberg</a> (Pittsburgh) and <a href="http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/people-defaults/nfs/index.php3">Nicholas Southwood </a> (ANU). <br /><br />Schellenberg currently holds a postdoc at ANU. Her paper "The Situation-Dependency of Perception" is forthcoming in JPhil and "Action and Self-location in Perception" appeared in Mind. Her book in progress is titled, <span style="font-style:italic;">Perception in Perspective</span>.<br /><br />Southwood currently holds a postdoc at ANU and was a Fulbright Scholar at Princeton University. His book <span style="font-style:italic;">Contractualism and the Foundations of Morality</span> is forthcoming with OUP. <br /><br />With the recent hire of Jonathan Schaffer, acceptances from Schellenberg and Southwood would really add to the strength of the department.<br /><br />UPDATE: Schellenberg and Southwood have accepted.Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-53532948326680855822007-11-18T11:36:00.000+11:002007-11-18T18:11:18.227+11:00Mindpapers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/shr0582l.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/shr0582l.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Dave Chalmers and his assistant editor, <a href="http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/people-defaults/dbourget/index.php3">David Bourget</a>, have launched <a href="http://consc.net/mindpapers/">Mindpapers</a>, which is a bibliographic database of over 13,000 papers in the philosophy of mind. Dave discusses the new tools over at <a href="http://fragments.consc.net/djc/2007/10/mindpapers.html">Fragments</a>---among them, highly flexible search options and statistical information. For instance, based on Google Scholar data, we find the top 100 most cited works in Mindpapers. <br /><br />Here are the top 10 most cited by philosophers: <br /><br /><blockquote>1. [3060] Jerry Fodor (1983). The Modularity of Mind. (More) [7.2b. Modularity]<br /><br />2. [2608] Daniel Dennett (1991). Consciousness Explained. (More) [1.4c. Dennett's Functionalism]<br /><br />3. [2469] Gilbert Ryle (1949). The Concept of Mind. (More) [4.3a. Logical Behaviorism]<br /><br />4. [1974] Saul Kripke (1972). Naming and Necessity. (More) [1.3c. Kripke's Modal Argument]<br /><br />5. [1750] David Chalmers (1996). The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. (More) [1.1a. Consciousness, General Works]<br /><br />6. [1612] Daniel Dennett (1987). The Intentional Stance. (More) [2.1b. The Intentional Stance]<br /><br />7. [1451] Jerry Fodor (1975). The Language of Thought. (More) [2.1a. The Language of Thought]<br /><br />8.[1388] Jon Barwise & John Perry (1983). Situations and Attitudes. (More) [2.3a. Information-Based Accounts]<br /><br /><br />9. [1266] Jerry Fodor & Zenon Pylyshyn (1988). Connectionism and cognitive architecture. (More) [6.3a. Connectionism and Compositionality]<br /><br />10.[1257] John Searle (1980). Minds, brains and programs. (More) [6.1c. The Chinese Room]</blockquote><br /><br />Here are the top 10 most cited overall: <br /><br /><blockquote>1. David Marr (1982). Vision. Freeman. (Cited by 5170 | Google | More links | Annotation | Edit) [7.4d. Levels of Analysis]<br />Defines computational, algorithmic and implementational levels.<br /><br />2. James Gibson (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin. (Cited by 4886 | Google | More links | Edit) [7.2e. Embodiment and Situated Cognition]<br /><br />3. Antonio Damasio (1994). Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Putnam. (Cited by 4670 | Google | More links | Edit) [5.1c. Emotions]<br />Additional links for this entry:<br /><br />4. Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic & Amos Tversky (eds.) (1982). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge University Press. (Cited by 3476 | Google | More links | Edit) [7.2d. Rationality]<br /><br />5. Jerry Fodor (1983). The Modularity of Mind. MIT Press. (Cited by 3060 | Google | More links | Annotation | Edit) [7.2b. Modularity]<br />Perception happens in informationally encapsulated, domain-specific modules. Central systems aren't encapsulated, and so may be impossible to understand.<br /><br />6. Edwin Hutchins (1995). Cognition in the Wild. MIT Press. (Cited by 2764 | Google | More links | Edit) [2.4h. Collective Intentionality]<br /><br />7. Terry Winograd & Fernando Flores (1987). Understanding Computers and Cognition. Addison-Wesley. (Cited by 2756 | Google | More links | Edit) [6.6. Philosophy of AI, Misc]<br /><br />8. Daniel Dennett (1991). Consciousness Explained. Penguin. (Cited by 2608 | Google | More links | Annotation | Edit) [1.4c. Dennett's Functionalism]<br />Argues against the "Cartesian Theatre", advocating a "multiple drafts" model of consciousness. Presents a detailed model of processes underlying verbal report, and argues that there is nothing else (e.g. qualia) to explain.<br /><br />9. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row. (Cited by 2522 | Google | Edit) [8.3j. The Stream of Consciousness]<br /><br />10. Gilbert Ryle (1949). The Concept of Mind. Hutchinson and Co. (Cited by 2469 | Google | More links | Annotation | Edit) [4.3a. Logical Behaviorism] <br /></blockquote><br />How do they compile such a massive resource...you ask? Apparently, the software harvests JSTOR and other archives and personal websites for papers, and recognizes and parses bibliographic information. Then if the program determines that the entry is highly likely relevant to Mindpapers, it is automatically categorized based on further Bayesian programming. The statistical information is automated as well. Pretty cool!Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-85205268745273150282007-11-13T01:34:00.000+11:002008-12-09T16:21:59.082+11:00Ruth Barcan Marcus Wins Lauener Prize<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_LhMf0lxXQPc/RzhlpcudCBI/AAAAAAAAI3I/1wJTmHgmBb0/s1600-h/marcus_r.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_LhMf0lxXQPc/RzhlpcudCBI/AAAAAAAAI3I/1wJTmHgmBb0/s320/marcus_r.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131963538148755474" /></a><br />The Lauener-Stiftung announces that <a href="http://www.lauener-foundation.ch/lfeindex.html">the Lauener Prize</a> for an Outstanding Oeuvre in Analytical Philosophy 2008 goes to Ruth Barcan Marcus (Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Yale University).<br /><br />The 3rd International Lauener Symposium on Analytical Philosophy held in honour of Ruth Barcan Marcus will take place in 2008 in Bern, Switzerland. <br /><br />HT: <a href="http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2007/11/lauener-prize-f.html">Leiter</a>Joe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31040582.post-71339964811446850022007-10-24T17:01:00.001+10:002008-12-09T16:21:59.267+11:00Arizona Ontology Conference 2008<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://aoc.web.arizona.edu/"><img style="float:right; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LhMf0lxXQPc/Rx7t9ky9YYI/AAAAAAAAIf8/Lg1bjt4Y8Xs/s320/AOC.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124795068099420546" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Speakers Include</span><br />Berit Brogaard, ANU<br />Andy Egan, Michigan<br />Adam Elga, Princeton<br />Hilary Greaves, Rutgers/Oxford<br />Thomas Hofweber, UNC-Chapel Hill<br />Jenann Ismael, Arizona/Sydney<br />Robin Jeshion, UC-Riverside<br />John MacFarlane, UC-Berkeley<br />Daniel Nolan, Nottingham<br />Jill North, Yale<br />Josh Parsons, Otago<br />Joe Salerno, ANU/Saint Louis<br />Brian Weatherson, RutgersJoe Salernohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15060173423563404276noreply@blogger.com0