Mini-Hiatus

I will be travelling for the next few weeks. Lemmings will be fairly quiet during that time.

Sharvy's Theory of Descriptions

I've posted a new draft of my paper "Sharvy's Theory of Definite Descriptions Revisited" on my webpage. Comments are more than welcome.

New Metaphysics Blog

The grad students at UB have started a new group blog, Ungrounded Dispositions. It is devoted to metaphysics and related matters and is well worth checking out.

2D and Context-Sensitive Predicates

Lots of predicates are claimed to be context-sensitive. Familiar examples include 'know', 'come', 'go', 'nearby', 'local', 'left', 'right', 'tall', and 'rich'. Here I shall mostly be concerned with a different group of predicates which may or may not turn out to be context-sensitive, namely predicates such as 'is the brightest object in the evening sky'. At first glance predicates like this one seem to be context-sensitive. After all, nothing can be the brightest without being the brightest to someone. Besides your evening sky isn't my evening sky. So, a good guess is that this sort of predicate is context-sensitive. This would mean that its 2-intension would vary across contexts. So, for some speakers, its extension may include Venus. For others not. But how then do we account for its 1-intension (its Fregean sense). One possibility is to take the predicate's 1-extension at a scenario to be relative to speakers. The idea is simple enough: scenarios are worlds with or without a centered individual. What counts as the brightest in the evening sky will be relative to the individual in the center (I am pretty sure I have seen this account of the predicate in David Chalmers' work, but when I went back to look I couldn't find the place).

But this sort of approach comes at a cost. For the individual in the center is also the 1-extension of 'I'. So, it would seem that I can know the following things on a priori grounds: 'Hesperus and I both exist iff Hesperus is the brightest object in the evening sky', 'if Hesperus and I both exist, then I am not blind', and 'If Hesperus and I both exist, then I am not a zombie'. Let's run the argument for the first case. 'Hesperus' (suppose) was acquired via the description 'the brightest object in the evening sky'. Now, suppose the scenario has no center, then the left-hand side is false. But so is the right-hand side. For there is no brightest object if the centered individual is not there to observe it. Suppose scenarios have centers. Then the left-hand side is true just when the right-hand side is. But now if these conditionals are true at all scenarios, then by definition one is in a position to know them on a priori grounds. But these conditionals do not seem a priori.

What to do? Well, we can simply reject the supposition that 'is the brightest object in the evening sky' is context-sensitive. Ignoring 'the evening sky' part of the predicate, there is a simple way of accounting for such predicates as expressing dispositional properties. x is the brightest object in the evening sky iff x would appear as the brightest in the evening sky to a standard observer under standard circumstances. This will get around the problem. But there is something odd about this. 'Bright', 'red', 'blue', and so on, no doubt express dispositional properties. It is easy to imagine what 'standard conditions' means here. It means something like 'normal lighting conditions, no obstructions, no evil deceivers, etc.'. But standard conditions do not usually include information about location. What would a normal or standard location be anyway? To account for the 'the evening sky' part it thus seems that we need to contextualize after all. Perhaps a mixed approach will do. On a mixed approach, 'x is the brightest object in the evening sky' is true at a scenario iff x is the brightest object to a standard observer located at the center under standard conditions. Even though we appeal to the center here, we do not run into trouble, as the analysans is a modal claim.

More Links

David Chalmers has some links to posts on consciousness and two-dimensionalism, including some posts on Lemmings.

As Brian Weatherson points out, the new Philosophical Perspectives is out. I just received my copy in the mail today. It is packed with very interesting-looking articles (not counting my own). Like Brian I look forward to reading these when we get passed this semester and the upcoming APA.

I should mention James Beebe's post on blind refereeing over at Certain Doubts again. I think this issue is extremely important, as publication is the only way up from the mud for many unestablished but promising young philosophers.

I note that Carrie Jenkins has a new book on knowledge and arithmetic coming out with Oxford University Press. It looks super-interesting.

Around the Blogosphere

Noam Chomsky turned 78 today. (Language Log)

David Chalmers reviews Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism, edited by Torin Alter and Sven Walter.

You can read about temporary and accidental intrinsics over at Knowability.

"Is Blind Review Threatened by Online Works in Progress?", James Beebe asks.

Can you submit a legal brief in Seussian verse? Brian Weatherson has the answer.

Not just Philosophers, Mathematicians too

Philosophers sometimes work on idiosyncratic problems which members of award and grant committees fail to see the value of. What about this for a grant proposal? "I would like to spend the next two semesters examining whether one can construct a feasible version of Lewis' (1968) counterpart theory but without postulate P2". I would immediately give money to this project but for obvious reasons I do not recommand that you submit it as your next grant proposal (unless you know I am on the committee). Speaking of failure to see the value of others' projects, here are some projects in mathematics which I bet many grant committees would turn down (or would have turned down). The projects are described in more detail here.

In 1896 Hadamard and de la Vallee Poussin proved that the chance that a random number nearby some large number n is prime is about 1 / ln(n), where ln(n) denotes the natural logarithm of n.

In 1930, L.G. Schnirelmann proved that every even number n greater than or identical to 4 can be written as the sum of at most 300,000 primes (this is my favorite).

In 2002 Liu Ming-Chit and Wang Tian-Ze proved that every odd number n greater than 2 x 10^{1346} is the sum of three primes. Meanwhile Oliveira e Silva is running a distributed computer search that has verified the weak Goldbach conjecture, viz. that all odd numbers greater than 9 are the sum of three odd primes, up to n > 4 x 10^{17}. So the gap is closing. Perhaps in a few years (with the faster computers the future will bring) the gap will close, and the conjecture will be proven (if the grant committees are willing to chip in).

Email Subscriptions

I've finally gotten around to adding an email subscription option for Lemmings. You can find it at the bottom of the sidebar.

Another 2D Puzzle

Here is another one of those can't-see-the-flaw-but-don't-believe-the-conclusion-style arguments:

Initial definitions:
[] ----- it is metaphysically necessary that
<> ----- It is metaphysically possible that
Apriori ----- It is a priori that
EP ----- It is epistemically possible that (or 'it is compatible with what is a priori that')
'Julius' ----- name (in the semantic sense) but known a priori to refer to the actual inventor of the zip.

Principle A:
(As proposed in the comment section here -- DJC's last comment): "the outermost operator determines which intension(s) of the immediately embedded sentence to look at", e.g., '(Apriori, actually p) iff (Apriori p)'.

By A, we have:
(1) Apriori []p <--> Apriori Apriori(p) [Apriori tells box to look at 1-intension]
(2) []Apriori(p) <--> [][]p [box tells a priori to look at 2-intension]
(3) []EP(p) <--> []<>p [box tells EP to look at 2-intension]

Metaphysical modality is governed by S5 (which includes):

[]p --> [][]p
<>p --> []<>p

So, we get (by 1-3):
[]p --> []Apriori (p)
<>p --> []EP (p)

Substituting in:

[]Water is H20 --> [](Apriori (water is H20))
<>Julius is not the inventor of the zip --> [](EP(Julius is not the inventor ...))

But that seems wrong. It doesn't seem that it is necessarily a priori that water is H20. Nor does it seem that it is necessary that it is epistemically possible that Julius is not the inventor of the zip (given that it is not epistemically possible that he is not).

Justices Weigh Race School Admissions

From Truthout:

Supreme Court deliberations are private, but yesterday's oral arguments on whether it is constitutional to allow school systems to use race in making school assignments became as much a public debate between the divided justices as a questioning of lawyers. The ultimate decision is likely to be one of the most defining of the court headed by the new chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr., and a powerful statement about where the nation stands more than 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education demanded an end to segregated schools.

Frances on Trick Socks and Religious Experience

What are trick socks and what do they have to do with religious experience? Bryan Frances argues that if you see what appears to be blue socks, and you continue to believe that the socks are blue, in spite of being told by reliable witnesses that they are really green, then it is plausible to think that your belief is blameworthy. But then if you "see" what appears to be God but you are told by reliable witnesses that what you "saw" was really something else, then, by analogy, your continued belief that you "saw" God is blameworthy. So, the blue socks case seems to suggest that to have religious beliefs of a certain kind may be epistemically irresponsible.

UPDATE: Bryan Frances has posted another excellent post on trick socks and religious experience over at Knowability, partially in response to Colleen Keating, Trent Dougherty, and other commentators.

Modal Adverbials

It seems that it should be possible to treat 'actually' as the modal adverbial 'in @', where '@' is a term for the actual world. Moreover, if terms have a primary intension in addition to a secondary intension, in Chalmers' sense, one should expect that non-actual scenarios verify '@' (just as some non-actual scenarios verify 'Hesperus is not Venus'). But these two positions appear to be inconsistent.

Suppose, for reductio, that for any given scenario S, S verifies '@' as it occurs in 'in @'. Then it is true at the actual world, that there is no scenario at which 'p iff in @, p' fails to obtain. So, 'p iff in @, p' is a priori. But the same holds regardless of which world the utterer occupies. So, at w2, it is true that there is no scenario (accessible from there, as it were) in which 'p iff in @, p' fails to obtain. And at w3, it is true that there is no scenario at which 'p iff in @, p' fails to obtain, and so on. So, 'p iff in @, p' is necessarily a priori. Now, this much still seems obvious to me.

But then Chalmers dropped the bomb: 'necessarily, it is a priori that (p iff in @, p)' entails 'necessarily, (p iff in @, p)'. But 'necessarily' operates on the secondary intension of the operand sentence. Since at any world the referent of '@' is the world of utterance, it is not necessary that (p iff in @, p). So, it is not necessarily a priori that (p iff in @,p).

But then it is and isn't necessarily a priori that (p iff in @, p). Contradiction. By reductio, it is not the case that for any given scenario S, S verifies '@'. So, 'in @' cannot have a primary intension, and so, given 2Dism 'actually' cannot be treated as a modal adverbial.

Now, I don't really believe the conclusion of this argument yet. So I am left to wonder whether it is sound, and if not, why I fail to see where it goes wrong.

The 39th Philosophers' Carnival

... is here, this time hosted by a brood comb.

2Dism and Epistemic Extension

We have been talking about two-dimensionalism in one of my seminars. One issue that came up was that of how names and kind-terms manage to refer (or "pick out something") in a (conceivable) scenario. Given two-dimensionalism, names refer (roughly) to their actual referents in metaphysically possible worlds but they refer to something that may be very different from their actual referents in (conceivable) scenarios. For example, 'David Chalmers' refers to David Chalmers in metaphysically possible worlds (where he exists) but in a given scenario, 'David Chalmers' may refer to someone who looks a lot more like David Lewis. So, 'David Chalmers = David Lewis' is metaphysically impossible but it may (in some contexts) be conceivable (for instance, if the speaker uses 'David Lewis' to mean, roughly, 'the author of The Plurality of Worlds' and uses 'David Chalmers' to mean, roughly, 'the author of The Conscious Mind').

Chalmers and Jackson say that if we have a complete canonical description of a scenario, then 'David Chalmers = David Lewis' is true there iff it is a priori implied by the description. The description (being canonical) cannot itself contain any names or kind-terms. But how then are we to understand the presupposed notion of apriority? If names and kind-terms are descriptions in disguise, then there is no problem seeing what is going on. But Chalmers and Jackson deny that this is so.

It's not that speakers associate descriptions with names and kind-terms (or that there necessarily are any such descriptions that could be associated with them). It's rather that if there is an implication of the aforementioned sort, then it corresponds to some (idealized) ability of the speaker in question. I found the following passages particularly illuminating (they are all from "Sense and Intension (SI)" or "Conceptual Analysis and Reductive Explanation (CARE)"):

"subjects are frequently in a position to identify the extension of a given concept, on reflection, under the hypothesis that the scenario in question obtains. Analysis of a concept proceeds at least in part through consideration of a concept's extension within hypothetical scenarios, and noting regularities that emerge" (CARE: 7)

"This pattern, whereby a conditional ability to evaluate a concept's extension yields elucidation of a concept without a finite counterexample-free analysis, is illustrated very clearly in the case of 'knowledge' " (CARE:8)

"The possibility of this sort of analysis is grounded in the following general feature of our concepts. If a subject possesses a concept and has unimpaired rational processes, then sufficient empirical information about the actual world puts a subject in a position to identify the concept's extension" (CARE: 8)

"If something like this is right, then possession of a concept such as 'knowledge' or 'water' bestows a conditional ability to identify the concept's extension under a hypothetical epistemic possibility, given sufficient information about that epistemic possibility and sufficient reasoning" (CARE: 9)

"But it remains the case that when a subject possesses a name, the subject will have a conditional ability to identify its extension given sufficient empirical information about the actual world, and the relevant conditionals will be a priori for the subject" (CARE: 12)

"It is probably easier, then, to give up the aim of producing a perfect explicit analysis, and to content ourselves with the observation that we have an a priori grasp of how our concepts apply to specific epistemic possibilities, when these are described in sufficient detail" (CARE: 24)

"The epistemic intension is a function, not a description. It is revealed in a subject's rational evaluation of specific epistemic possibilities, not in any sort of explicit definition" (SI)

"Here the crucial property of a description is that it gives us a way of identifying an expression's extension, given full knowledge of how the world turns out. It may be that for some expressions ..., there is no description that can do this job. It is nevertheless not implausible that the expression's extension depends in some fashion on how the world turns out, and in particular that full knowledge of how the world turns out puts a subject in a position to identify the expression's extension" (SI)

As these passages make clear, a given expression need not be associated with a description in order for it to have an extension in a given (conceivable) scenario. But if the subject possesses the concept in question, then she has an ability to pick out the extension at any (conceivable) scenario. Here is another way to put the point: to grasp a concept simply is to have this ability (under ideal circumstances). If a subject lacks the ability (under ideal circumstances), then she does not master the concept.

Class Struggle

America is apparently in an unfortunate and unfair but steady drift toward a class-based society. Jim Webb writes:

America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes

Read more here.

Have You Ever Been Insulted in Print?

If you think you haven't been, check out Bryan Frances' entertaining post over at Knowability, devoted to this issue. And if you think you have been, and you need a place to vent and bitch and moan, you can contribute with your own insights here.

Thomas Sattig: The Language and Reality of Time

My review of Thomas Sattig's book The Language and Reality of Time has appeared in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

More on the PGR

Some graduate students have started a new blog, which is devoted to criticism of the PGR.

Also, Keith DeRose has updated his post over at Certain Doubts.

Blue Swans and Unknowable Facts

I've posted a new draft of my paper "On Keeping Blue Swans and Unknowable Facts at Bay. A Case Study on Fitch's Paradox" on my webpage. Comments are more than welcome.

On the Recent Criticism of the PGR

Keith DeRose defends the Philosophical Gourmet Report from recent criticism over at Certain Doubts. The criticism came from Prof. Michael Pakaluk of Clark University and can be found here. Professor Pakaluk thinks the Philosophical Gourmet Report is a "pointless waiste of time". He thinks that if students are qualified to go to graduate school, they ought to know where the professors they want to work with are located. But then they don't need to solicit advice from the PGR. I think this argument misconstrues the purpose of the PGR. In my opinion, the primary purpose of the PGR is to help students increase their chances of getting accepted by a program which most other scholars in the profession consider a top program in philosophy. After all, it is the very same scholars who will be making most of the hiring decisions a few years laters when these students go on the job market. And it is hardly a secret that pedigree matters when departments decide who to hire.

Professor Pakaluk does briefly address this issue. He writes:

It's a bit misleading to say, as the Report does, that "The rankings are primarily measures of faculty quality and reputation. Faculty quality and reputation correlates quite well with job placement, but students are well-advised to make inquiries with individual departments for complete information on this score." The placement rankings can and should stand on their own. But do you know anyone who has consulted the Leiter rankings in hiring a candidate? If we wouldn't be so foolish, why would we recommend that students heed these rankings in choosing a program as regards something much more important than a job, viz. their education?

I do not think anyone needs to consult the PGR in order to decide whether or not to hire a candidate. Everyone is already fully aware of how the individual departments are ranked, and as everyone knows, it matters a great deal where a job candidate got his or her Ph.D., at least at the junior level. A Ph.D. from a top program in philosophy is not exactly an entrance ticket but it will increase the candidate's chances of landing a tenure-track job, perhaps even one with a decent course load.