Paul Boghossian

I defend normative realism—the claim that there are mind-independent, absolute normative facts—mostly by arguing against its rivals. Against mind-dependent theories of normativity, I argue that at least one highly influential version of such a view, Lewis's dispositional theory of value, is subject to at least three severe problems: the problem of the implausible contingency of value, the problem of ideal conditions, and the problem of lack of convergence. Against relativistic conceptions of normativity, I argue that either they fail to evade a commitment to absolute normative truths, or they fail to distinguish themselves from Nihilism. Finally, against Nihilism, I argue that it is not a coherent option at least for the normative domain of rationality, since facts about rationality are presupposed by any judgment, including any judgment meant to express a skepticism about facts about rationality.

In this chapter a new problem about rule-following is outlined, one that is distinct both from Kripke’s and Wright’s versions of the problem. This new problem cannot be correctly responsed to, as Kripke’s can, by invoking Wright’s Intentional Account of rule-following. The upshot might be called, following Kant, an antinomy of pure reason: we both must — and cannot — make sense of someone’s following a rule. The chapter explores various ways out of this antinomy without here endorsing any of them.

Quine is usually read as arguing either for a non-factualism about analyticity (1) ... Or, at the very least, for an error thesis about it: (2) ... These attributions — including the stronger non-factualist thesis — seem licensed by many passages, including the famous one which concludes Quine's discussion in "Two Dogmas" ... Nevertheless, Paul Horwich does not wish to read Quine as endorsing either (1) or (2). He certainly does not wish to attribute (1) to him. And he wishes to attribute only a restricted version of (2). What this restriction is and why Paul wants to make it are matters I'll come to in just a moment.

This chapter assumes that intuitions must play a central role in explaining a priori justification and looks at the conditions under which they would be able to do so. It argues that if an appeal to intuitions is to help, they must provide epistemological resources that go beyond those provided by explanations in terms of epistemological analyticity (appeals to conceptual understanding). Accounts, like Ernest Sosa’s, which reduce intuitions to attractions to assent, and which give the understanding an indispensable role in explaining the justificatory powers of such attractions, are unable to provide such a resource. As a result, such accounts must be rejected. Towards the end of the chapter, an alternative account of these issues is briefly presented, one that seems to the author to hold greater promise.

Extract: Maria Baghramian and Annalisa Coliva (henceforth, B&C) have written a superb, compendious book on various kinds of relativism (2019). While they give nuanced and sympathetic reconstructions of these views, it is illuminating to see them show, repeatedly and in detail, how each of these views succumbs to a familiar dilemma: a relativistic view requires that it be possible for two judgers to genuinely disagree with one another, even while their views count as ‘equally valid’. However, it is not possible to make sense of this combination: in each and every case, the view either fails to specify a genuine disagreement, or it fails to make sense of equal validity. Since I completely agree with this type of critique of relativistic views (see Boghossian 2006, 2008), I found it hard to find something to write a critical notice about. However, there is one argument I was not convinced by and that is B&C’s argument against Gilbert Harman’s influential version of moral relativism. Since their discussion of Harman is original and interesting and leads to a number of fundamental philosophical issues, I will devote this notice to a detailed critique of it.

This chapter revisits the classic questions whether absolute music can express extra-musical meaning and whether such meaning should be thought of as playing an important role in our understanding and appreciation of music. It argues that music’s expressive ability plays a central role in our conception of its phenomenology and value—in our perception of music as expressive and in its capacity to move us, both in the understudied generic sense, and in the sense of arousing specific emotions in us. It examines a type of scepticism about music’s expressive ability made influential by Eduard Hanslick and considers to what extent it can be answered. The chapter concludes that, while the extreme scepticism espoused by Hanslick cannot be sustained, his discussion teaches us deep lessons about the expressive indeterminacy involved in music. The chapter illustrates some of the issues it deals with through an analysis of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major and explores the connection between meaning in music and meaning in poetry.

The conviction that intentional realism requires intentional reductionism has the philosophy of mind in its grip. Thus, Jerry Fodor: .... It is worth noting — if only because it so seldom is nowadays — that this rationale for the naturalistic conviction begs a question that doesn't obviously deserve to be begged. Why, indeed, must we think that no property can be real unless it is identical with, or supervenient upon, the properties that appear in the catalogues provided by physics? There is, I think, no obvious answer.

This chapter aims to provide materials with which to substantiate the claim that, under the appropriate circumstances, the notion of analyticity can help explain how one might have a priori knowledge even in the strong sense. It argues that Implicit Definition, properly understood, is completely independent of any form of irrealism about logic. The chapter defends the thesis of Implicit Definition against Quine's criticisms, and examines the sort of account of the apriority of logic that this doctrine is able to provide. The chapter shows that, against the background of a rejection of indeterminacy, its insolubility cannot be conceded. It also argues that neither a non‐factualism about Frege‐analyticity, nor an error thesis about it, can plausibly fall short of an outright rejection of meaning itself. The chapter shows how the doctrine that appears to offer the most promising account of how we grasp the meanings of the logical constants.

The dissertation is in two parts. The first part consists of an extended essay on Saul Kripke's recent reflections on Wittgenstein's discussion of the concepts of meaning and following a rule. It is principally concerned to argue for the following claims: That Kripke is correct in claiming that there is an important sense in which any content property is a normative property. That, contrary to Kripke, recognition of this fact need not lead us to conclude that content properties are metaphysically incoherent; but rather, that content properties are not reducible to purely naturalistic properties. And finally that an instrumentalism or projectivism about content properties is of dubious coherence. ;The second part consists of a critical discussion of Kripke's claim, advanced in his paper "A Puzzle About Belief", that the apparent referential opacity of belief contexts cannot be taken as evidence against a Millian theory of names

Compatibilism combines an externalist view of mental content with a doctrine of privileged self‐knowledge. The essay presents a reductio of compatibilism by arguing that if compatibilism were true, we would be in a position to know certain facts about the world a priori, facts that no one can reasonably believe are knowable a priori. Whether this should be taken to cast doubt on externalism or privileged self‐knowledge is not discussed. Consideration is given to the ’empty case’—the case in which a thinker expresses what he takes to be a genuine thought concerning a natural kind but where there is in fact no relevant natural kind, so that the putative natural kind term fails to refer. It is argued that, in such a case, on an externalist conception of natural kind terms, the thinker is deluded in taking himself to be expressing a complete thought, and that such delusions are not compatible with privileged self‐knowledge.

What happens when we reason our way from one proposition to another? This process is usually called “inference” and this chapter examines its nature. It revisits the author’s earlier attempts to explain the nature of the process of inference, and tries to further clarify why we need the type of “intellectualist” account of that process that he has been pursuing. In the course of doing so, the chapter traces some unexpected connections between our topic and the distinction between a priori and a posteriori justification, and tries to draw some general methodological morals about the role of phenomenology in the philosophy of mind.

This chapter revisits the question whether facts about intentional content can be understood in purely naturalistic terms. In a previous work, ‘The Rule-Following Considerations’, it was argued that Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein-inspired discussion of following a rule was, pace Kripke’s intention, best understood as showing that facts about intentional content resist naturalistic reduction. The message of this chapter is the same, although it differs from, and hopefully improves upon, the earlier work in several respects. First, it argues for a somewhat weaker conclusion—not that facts about intentional content cannot be naturalistically reduced, but, rather, that either they cannot be reduced or that they are indeterminate. Second, it uses bits of Kripke’s discussion not emphasized previously and that, in any case, have been widely rejected as ineffective. And, finally, it takes into account important distinctions that were missing both from Kripke’s original discussion and from the previous work referenced here.

Normativity is both one of the most important and ubiquitous of phenomena and, despite its historical centrality to philosophy, one of the least understood. The idea that there might be objective, attitude-independent, truths about what we ought to do (morality), what we ought to believe (rationality) or what we ought to appreciate (aesthetics), has always seemed very puzzling to philosophers, even though ordinary thought seems steeped in such judgments. Up until quite recently, the received view was that there was no good way to make sense of such a realistic, objectivist construal of normativity, that we have to make do with one or another anti-realistic alternative, principally, Expressivism, some forms of Constructivism, or Relativism. However, the well-known difficulties with these anti-realist options have motivated philosophers, most especially younger ones, to take a fresh look at Realism and to assess and develop it in new ways. Sometimes the result is that Realism is seen to be better protected against classic objections than had been previously realized; at others, the result seems to be that Realism is even harder to defend, and perhaps even harder to understand, than traditional thinking had allowed. The upshot is a vigorous and stimulating debate that is just beginning to take shape and whose outcome is far from resolved. The main impulse behind the present volume was to commission new work on Normative Realism by a mix of senior and junior scholars to give the philosophical community a useful sense of the current state of play on this central topic. ...