Argumenta – Journal of Analytic Philosophy

 

Proper Names as Demonstratives [Special Issue]

Issue: Issue 15 • Author/s: Maciej Tarnowski
Topics: Epistemology, Meta-Philosophy, Philosophy of language

The paper considers the hypothesis that proper names are simple demonstratives. In the first part, I provide the general motivation for an indexical treatment of proper names as well as assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing indexical accounts. The second part is devoted to proposing a new account that treats proper names as simple demonstratives, where referents are determined by the speaker’s referential intention. In my proposal, I use the hybrid approach toward indexical expressions developed by Wolfgang Künne (1992) and Stefano Predelli (2006). I argue that this approach…

Metaphor Identification beyond Discourse Coherence [Special Issue]

Issue: Issue 15 • Author/s: Inés Crespo, Andreas Heise, Claudia Picazo
Topics: Epistemology, Meta-Philosophy, Philosophy of language

In this paper, we propose an account of metaphor identification on the basis of contextual coherence. In doing so, we build on previous work by Nicholas Asher and Alex Lascarides that appeals to rhetorical relations in order to explain discourse structure and the constraints on the interpretation of metaphor that follow from it. Applying this general idea to our problem, we will show that rhetorical relations are sometimes insufficient and sometimes inadequate for deciding whether a given utterance is a case of metaphor. They are insufficient, since rhetorical relations fall…

Lying and Misleading in Context [Special Issue]

Issue: Issue 15 • Author/s: Palle Leth
Topics: Epistemology, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of language, Theoretical philosophy

In this paper I question the lying/misleading distinction from three different angles. I argue, first, that if speakers are responsible for what they explicitly say only and hearers for what they infer that speakers implicitly convey, it is practically impossible to enforce speaker responsibility. An implication of this view is that the lying/misleading distinction is untenable. Other attempts at questioning the distinction have been countered by empirical evidence of the robustness of the distinction. However, there is also contrasting empirical evidence that people do think that it is possible to…

Toward a General Model of Agency

Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Emanuele Martinelli
Topics: Epistemology, Metaethics, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of action

Generally speaking, the present literature on agency has been heavily focused on human agency. This approach proves to be very useful for the immediate applications of the philosophy of agency, e.g. to develop a definition ready for use in ethics or political philosophy. However, there are some limitations to this line of thought, as, for instance, it poses too restrictive requirements on agency, like purposefulness, consciousness, or willingness. In this paper, I would like to tackle the question of agency with the need to include non-human agency in mind. I…

Logical and Ontological Issues in the Manifest and the Scientific Images: An Introduction [Special Issue]

Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Francesco Orilia, Mario Alai, Ernesto Graziani
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of language, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy

On Sellars’ Attempt to Build a Synoptic Image of the World [Special Issue]

Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Mauro Dorato
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy

In the first part of the paper, I discuss three possible ways to achieve some unity between Sellars’ manifest and scientific image of the world. The plurality of scientific methods that I am advocating is compatible with the fact that all empirical sciences strive for beliefs based on the normative concepts of evidence, explanatory power, and experimental accuracy. Such methods provide different means to reach the common purpose of justification. In the second part of the paper, I criticize Sellars’ definition of the manifest image in terms of a suddenly…

Possible Limits of Conceptual Engineering: Magnetism, Fixed Points and Inescapability [Special Issue]

Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Matti Eklund
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Theoretical philosophy

In contemporary philosophy there is much focus on conceptual engineering: the enterprise of revising and replacing concepts. In this talk, I focus on a theoretical issue that has not yet received much attention. What principled limits are there to this sort of enterprise? Are there concepts that for principled reasons cannot or should not be revised or replaced? Examples discussed include logical concepts and normative concepts.

Cohabiting with the Logical Paradoxes: A Negative Assessment and a Proposal [Special Issue]

Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Riccardo Bruni, Francesco Orilia
Topics: Epistemology, Logic, Metaphysics, Philosophical logic, Philosophy of language, Theoretical philosophy

At the commonsensical level of the manifest image, we seem to take for granted logical laws of all sorts, including classical logic (CL) and naive principles of truth and predication (TP), which, however, generate logical paradoxes such as the liar, Russell’s paradox and Curry’s paradox. The formal logic of the scientific image comes to the rescue by proposing many competing formal systems that restore consistency, by sacrificing either principles of CL or principles of TP. We wish to explore a different path, which aims at saving both CL and TP,…

A Hierarchical Characterization of Ignorance in Epistemic Logic [Special Issue]

Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Alessandro Aldini, Pierluigi Graziani, Mirko Tagliaferri
Topics: Epistemology, Logic, Modal Logic, Philosophy of language, Theoretical philosophy

We study different forms of ignorance and their correlations in a bi-modal logical language expressing the two modalities of knowledge and belief. In particular, we are mainly interested in clarifying which definitions of ignorance and which circumstances trigger higher-order forms of ignorance, inducing ignorance about ignorance and so on. To this aim, three ground conditions concerning knowledge and belief are presented, which may be seen as a cause of ignorance and can help us to identify the conditions enabling the emergence of higher-order forms of ignorance.

In Defense of Irreducible Relations [Special Issue]

Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Francesco Orilia, Michele Paolini Paoletti
Topics: Epistemology, Logic, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of language

At least since Russell, mainstream analytic philosophy has distinguished internal and external relations and acknowledged the existence of both. This seems in line with both the manifest and scientific images of the world. However, there is a recent deflationary trend about relations, which focuses on the truthmakers of relational statements in order to show that putative external relations are in fact internal, and that internal relations do not really exist. Lowe’s posthumous 2016 paper is a thorough presentation of this line of thought. This article critically analyzes Lowe’s arguments in…
1 8 9 10 11 12 18