{"title":"Knowledge without dogmatism","authors":"Earl Conee","doi":"10.1007/s11098-024-02159-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02159-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Rachel Fraser, Gilbert Harman, Saul Kripke, and Maria Lasonen-Aarnio have offered arguments for paradoxical implications of knowledge. The arguments contend that knowing a proposition justifies believing it dogmatically, or dogmatically maintaining confidence in it, or dogmatically intending to continue to believe it. Yet it is quite doubtful that knowing could justify any sort of dogmatism. The arguments will be assessed. We will see why knowledge does not justify being dogmatic. The reason is essentially that deferring to our evidence is never dogmatic, and knowledge never overrides or undercuts the justification that derives from our evidence.</p>","PeriodicalId":48305,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141453171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ability predicates, or there and back again","authors":"Julian J. Schloeder","doi":"10.1007/s11098-024-02178-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02178-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Predicates like <i>knowable</i>, <i>believable</i> or <i>evincible</i> each are associated with Fitch-like paradoxes. Given some plausible assumptions, the <i>prima facie</i> reasonable hypotheses that <i>what is true is knowable/believable/evincible</i> entail, respectively, the decidedly unreasonable conclusions that <i>what is true is known/believed/evinced</i>. I argue that all Fitch-like paradoxes admit of a common diagnosis and give a uniform semantics for predicates like <i>knowable</i> that avoids the paradoxes while accounting for the intuitive meaning of these predicates. Moreover, I argue that a semantics of the same shape is to be given to similar predicates like <i>erasable</i> or <i>legible</i>, whose simple analyses likewise face broadly Fitch-like problems. This semantics also highlights and explains the context-sensitive nature of such predicates.</p>","PeriodicalId":48305,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141439853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Egyptology and fanaticism","authors":"Hayden Wilkinson","doi":"10.1007/s11098-024-02180-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02180-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Various decision theories share a troubling implication. They imply that, for any finite amount of value, it would be better to wager it all for a vanishingly small probability of some greater value. Counterintuitive as it might be, this <i>fanaticism</i> has seemingly compelling independent arguments in its favour. In this paper, I consider perhaps the most <i>prima facie</i> compelling such argument: an <i>Egyptology argument</i> (an analogue of the Egyptology argument from population ethics). I show that, despite recent objections from Russell (Noûs, 2023) and Goodsell (Analysis 81(3):420–426, 2021), the argument’s premises can be justified and defended, and the argument itself remains compelling.</p>","PeriodicalId":48305,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141453156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What does nihilism tell us about modal logic?","authors":"Christopher James Masterman","doi":"10.1007/s11098-024-02166-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02166-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Brauer (Philos Stud 179:2751–2763, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01793-7, 2022) has recently argued that if it is possible that there is nothing, then the correct modal logic for metaphysical modality cannot include <span>D</span>. Here, I argue that Brauer’s argument is unsuccessful; or at the very least significantly weaker than presented. First, I outline a simple argument for why it is not possible that there is nothing. I note that this argument has a well-known solution involving the distinction between truth in and truth at a possible world. However, I then argue that once the semantics presupposed by Brauer’s argument is reformulated in terms of truth at a world, we have good reasons to think that a crucial semantic premise in Brauer’s argument should be rejected in favour of an alternative. Brauer’s argument is, however, no longer valid with this alternative premise. Thus, plausibly Brauer’s argument against <span>D</span> is only valid, if it is not sound.</p>","PeriodicalId":48305,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141439864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Opaque Options","authors":"Kacper Kowalczyk, Aidan B. Penn","doi":"10.1007/s11098-024-02134-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02134-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Moral options are permissions to do less than best, impartially speaking. In this paper, we investigate the challenge of reconciling moral options with the ideal of justifiability to each individual. We examine ex-post and ex-ante views of moral options and show how they might conflict with this ideal in single-choice and sequential-choice cases, respectively. We consider some ways of avoiding this conflict in sequential-choice cases, showing that they face significant problems.</p>","PeriodicalId":48305,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141439841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The inferential constraint and if $$varvec{phi }$$ ought $$varvec{phi }$$ problem","authors":"Una Stojnić","doi":"10.1007/s11098-024-02127-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02127-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The standard semantics for modality, together with the influential restrictor analysis of conditionals (Kratzer, 1986, 2012) renders conditional <i>ought</i> claims like “If John’s stealing, he ought to be stealing” trivially true. While this might seem like a problem specifically for the restrictor analysis, the issue is far more general. Any account must predict that modals in the consequent of a conditional sometimes receive obligatorily unrestricted interpretation, as in the example above, but sometimes appear restricted, as in, e.g., “If John’s speeding, he ought to pay the fine.” And the problem runs deeper, for there are non-conditional variants of the data. Thus, the solution cannot lie in adopting a particular analysis of conditionals, nor a specific account of the interaction between conditionals and modals. Indeed, with minimal assumptions, the standard account of modality will render a myriad of claims about what one ought to, must, or may, do trivially true. Worse, the problem extends to a wide range of non-deontic modalities, including metaphysical modality. But the disaster has a remedy. I argue that the source of the problem for the standard account lies in its failure to capture an inferential evidence constraint encoded in the meaning of a wide range of modal constructions. I offer an account that captures this constraint, and show it provides a general and independently motivated solution to the problem.\u0000</p>","PeriodicalId":48305,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141430384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Powers, persistence, and the problem of temporary intrinsics","authors":"Sophie R. Allen","doi":"10.1007/s11098-024-02157-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02157-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>David Lewis uses the problem of temporary intrinsics to motivate a perdurantist account of persistence in which four-dimensional individuals consist of temporal parts. Other philosophers use his argument to conclude that apparently persisting individuals are collections of temporal stages. In this paper, I investigate whether this argument is as effective in an ontology in which properties are causal powers and thus how seriously the problem should be taken. I go back to first principles to examine the ways in which individuals can change within an ontology of powers and then consider whether any of these ways are compatible with Lewis’s problem. I conclude that if powers are intrinsic, they are not temporary; and if they are temporary, they are not fully intrinsic. However, the situation with respect to changes in which powers are manifesting is not so clear cut, and so I explore how different conceptions of manifestation affect whether the problem of temporary intrinsics applies and what the powers theorist may say about them.</p>","PeriodicalId":48305,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141430475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The shutdown problem: an AI engineering puzzle for decision theorists","authors":"Elliott Thornley","doi":"10.1007/s11098-024-02153-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02153-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>I explain and motivate the shutdown problem: the problem of designing artificial agents that (1) shut down when a shutdown button is pressed, (2) don’t try to prevent or cause the pressing of the shutdown button, and (3) otherwise pursue goals competently. I prove three theorems that make the difficulty precise. These theorems suggest that agents satisfying some innocuous-seeming conditions will often try to prevent or cause the pressing of the shutdown button, even in cases where it’s costly to do so. I end by noting that these theorems can guide our search for solutions to the problem.</p>","PeriodicalId":48305,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141430578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is there such a thing as felicitous underspecification?","authors":"Jeff Speaks","doi":"10.1007/s11098-024-02179-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02179-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In Felicitous Underspecification, Jeffrey King draws our attention to a rich and underexplored collection of linguistic data. These are uses of context-sensitive expressions which seem perfectly felicitous despite being such that, on plausible assumptions, the context in which they are used falls short of securing for them a unique semantic value. This raises an immediate puzzle: if, as King argues, these uses of expressions really do lack unique semantic values in context, how can they—as they manifestly do—make contributions to the conversations in which they occur? King answers this question with a novel theory of conversational updating. Here I focus less on this theory than on King’s examples, and consider some ways of accommodating them without positing felicitous underspecification. In some cases I give some reasons for thinking that the alternative explanation is superior. But my aim is less to establish this conclusion than to suggest some new options for thinking about these examples, and hopefully by so doing to advance the conversation about the data to which King has drawn our attention.</p>","PeriodicalId":48305,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141333633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Specificity and what is meant","authors":"Zoltán Gendler Szabó","doi":"10.1007/s11098-024-02175-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02175-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Felicitous underspecification—apparently flawless use of context-sensitive words in contexts where they cannot be assigned unique semantic values—is rather common in ordinary speech. King presents a hypothesis about the mechanism conversational participants employ handling felicitous underspecification, one that fits the rich data he surveys well. I will begin by illustrating how King’s account could be put to use in making sense of what happens in a real life conversation. Then I will point out certain shortcomings of the explanation and offer suggestions about how they might be overcome.</p>","PeriodicalId":48305,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141326879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}