In the previous post I presented the main arguments against the method of cases developed in Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds. Various objections can be raised against this argument, some of which have already been put in print. Chapter 5 addresses 8 objections: I defend the experimental quality of the research …
In the previous post, I argued for a minimalist characterization of the method of cases, which I share with some of the most well-known critics of experimental philosophy. In this post, I want to present the two arguments against the method of cases, developed in Chapter 3 and 4 of …
In the previous post, I introduced the method of cases: To find out whether modal claims are true, philosophers describe actual and possible situations and assess what facts hold in these situations. For instance, following Gettier’s classic paper, to determine whether, necessarily, someone knows that pif and only if she …
Does responsibility require the possibility to have done otherwise? Does knowledge require safety? Can causation be reduced to some form of counterfactual dependency? Could a material duplicate fail to be a psychological duplicate? To answer these and similar questions, one must gain knowledge about metaphysical possibilities and necessities. One must …
There are, broadly speaking, three competing frameworks for answering the foundational questions of linguistic theory—cognitivism (e.g., Chomsky 1995, 2000), platonism (e.g., Katz 1981, 2000), and nominalism (e.g., Devitt 2006, 2008). Platonism is the view that the subject matter of linguistics is an uncountable set of abstracta—entities that are located outside …
In my 2016 book, Rightness as Fairness: A Moral and Political Theory, I argue that morality is a solution to a problem of diachronic rationality called ‘the problem of possible future selves.’ To simplify (very) greatly, the problem–which is partially inspired by L.A. Paul’s groundbreaking work on transformative experience–is that (A) our present …
In this post I want to focus on a distinction that has come up in both comment threads. It’s the distinction between inferences, and factors that regulate inferences. Here’s an example. It’s about wishful thinking.
