•  11
    Saint Vitus Dance
    In William Irwin (ed.), Black Sabbath and Philosophy: Mastering Reality, Wiley. pp. 87--95. 2013.
  •  995
    Modal skepticism: Philosophical thought experiments and modal epistemology
    Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 10 281--296. 2003.
    One of the most basic methods of philosophy is, and has always been, the consideration of counterfactual cases and imaginary scenarios. One purpose of doing so obviously is to test our theories against such counterfactual cases. Although this method is widespread, it is far from being commonly accepted. Especially during the last two decades it has been confronted with criticism ranging from complete dismissal to denying only its critical powers to a cautious defense of the use of thought experi…Read more
  •  885
    Take a look at these four situations: Figure 1 All of these situations have certain features in common: in all of them an explanation is asked for, in all of them an explanation is given, and all these explanations are literally false (although in different ways).
  •  47
    Nelson Goodman
    Routledge. 2006.
    Nelson Goodman's acceptance and critique of certain methods and tenets of positivism, his defence of nominalism and phenomenalism, his formulation of a new riddle of induction, his work on notational systems, and his analysis of the arts place him at the forefront of the history and development of American philosophy in the twentieth-century. However, outside of America, Goodman has been a rather neglected figure. In this first book-length introduction to his work Cohnitz and Rossberg assess Goo…Read more
  •  653
    Why Consistentism Won’t Work
    In E. Weber & T. DeMey (eds.), Modal Epistemology, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie Van Belgie Vor Wetenschappen En Kunsten. 2004.
  •  423
    Egal was der heutige Tag auch bringen mag, der 1. April 2063 wird zumindest als der Tag in die Geschichte des Wissenschaftsjournalismus eingehen, der die bisher aufwändigste Berichterstattung erfahren hat. So viele Kamerateams, wie hier vor den Toren der Australian National University in Canberra, hat bisher kein wissenschaftliches Experiment anziehen können. Selbst der Knüller des Vorjahres, als es einer 48jährigen Hausfrau in einem Vorort von London gelang, mit einfachsten Küchenutensilien ein…Read more
  •  273
    Intuitions in Philosophical Semantics
    Erkenntnis 80 (3): 617-641. 2015.
    We argue that the term “intuition”, as it is used in metaphilosophy, is ambiguous between at least four different senses. In philosophy of language, the relevant “intuitions” are either the outputs of our competence to interpret and produce linguistic expressions, or the speakers’ or hearers’ own reports of these outputs. The semantic facts that philosophers of language are interested in are determined by the outputs of our competence. Hence, philosophers of language should be interested in inve…Read more
  •  19
    Brief aus Estland
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 62 (2): 321-335. 2014.
    This personal letter describes the history and current situation of philosophy in Estonia. We sketch the development of academic philosophy since the foundation of Tartu University in 1632, and describe the current philosophical landscape. We discuss the challenges we are facing in trying to find a balance between the responsibility that a discipline in the humanties in a small country has with respect to local culture and society on the one hand, and our ambitions to build up an internationally…Read more
  •  446
    In their paper “Sixteen Days” Barry Smith and Berit Brogaard try to answer the question: when does a human being begin to exist? In this paper we will address some methodological issues connected with this exercise in ontology. We shall begin by sketching the argument of “Sixteen Days”. We shall then attempt to characterize what is special about the ontological realism of “Sixteen Days” as contrasted to the linguistic constructivism which represents the more dominant current in contemporary anal…Read more
  •  241
    The Role of Intuitions in Philosophy
    Studia Philosophica Estonica 2 (2): 1-14. 2009.
    As we write this, philosophers all over the world are in a state of temporary, collective self-scrutiny. Tey are poring over the results of the PhilPapers Survey, conducted by David Chalmers and David Bourgeta grand-scale survey of the professions views on 30 major philosophical issues, ranging from aesthetic value to zombies. More than 3000 people have responded, andmanymore are currently absorbing and analyzing the results
  •  46
    Nelson Goodman
    The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2014.
    Nelson Goodman's acceptance and critique of certain methods and tenets of positivism, his defence of nominalism and phenomenalism, his formulation of a new riddle of induction, his work on notational systems, and his analysis of the arts place him at the forefront of the history and development of American philosophy in the twentieth-century. However, outside of America, Goodman has been a rather neglected figure. In this first book-length introduction to his work Cohnitz and Rossberg assess Goo…Read more
  • Sie halten gerade ein Buch in Ihren H¨anden. Vielleicht liegt es auch auf dem Tisch vor Ihnen, w¨ahrend Sie diese Worte lesen. Aber woher wissen Sie, dass Sie ein Buch vor sich haben? Nun, Sie sehen es nat¨urlich mit eigenen Augen. Vermutlich f¨uhlen Sie auch das Gewicht des Buches, das gegen Ihre Haut dr¨uckt, w¨ahrend sie es in H¨anden halten, und h¨oren das Rascheln der Seiten, wenn Sie umbl¨attern. Dar¨uber hinaus sind Sie wach und (so vermuten wir mal) einigermaßen n¨uchtern, also in einem …Read more
  •  951
    Thought Experiments Outside Science (review)
    Metascience 22 (2): 1-5. 2013.
  •  252
    Disagreements
    Erkenntnis 79 (S1): 1-10. 2014.
    This special issue of Erkenntnis is devoted to the varieties of disagreement that arise in different areas of discourse, and the consequences we should draw from these disagreements, either concerning the subject matter and its objectivity, or concerning our own views about this subject matter if we learn, for example, that an epistemic peer disagrees with our view. In this introduction we sketch the background to the recent philosophical discussions of these questions, and the location occupied…Read more
  •  3471
    Wie ist es wohl, eine Fledermaus zu sein? Wäre ein rein physikalisches Duplikat von mir nur ein empfindungsloser Zombie? Muss man sich seinem Schicksal ergeben, wenn man sich unfreiwillig als lebensnotwendige Blutwaschanlage eines weltberühmten Violinisten wieder findet? Kann man sich wünschen, der König von China zu sein? Bin ich vielleicht nur ein Gehirn in einem Tank mit Nährflüssigkeit, das die Welt von einer Computersimulation vorgegaukelt bekommt? Worauf beziehen sich die Menschen auf der …Read more
  •  2037
    The unity of Goodman's thought
    In Gerhard Ernst, Jakob Steinbrenner & Oliver R. Scholz (eds.), From Logic to Art: Themes from Nelson Goodman, Ontos. pp. 7--33. 2009.
    I argue that Goodman’s philosophy should not be characterised in opposition to the philosophy of the logical empiricists, but is more fruitfully interpreted as a continuation of their philosophical programme. In particular, understanding Goodman’s philosophy as a continuation of the ideal language tradition makes explicable how a radical ontological relativist could be such a staunch nominalist at the same time.
  •  944
    When reasons are given for compositionality, the arguments usually purport to establish compositionality in an almost a priori manner. I will rehearse these arguments why one could think that compositionality is a priori true, or almost a priori true, and will find all of them inconclusive. This, in itself, is no reason against compositionality, but a reason to try to establish or defend the principle on other than quasi-a priori grounds.
  •  814
    This book is conceived as an introductory text into the theory of syntactic and semantic information, and information flow.
  •  158
    Moral Realism and Faultless Disagreement
    Ratio 29 (2): 202-212. 2015.
    Is moral realism compatible with the existence of moral disagreements? Since moral realism requires that if two persons are in disagreement over some moral question at least one must be objectively mistaken, it seems difficult to uphold that there can be moral disagreements without fault. Alison Hills argued that moral realism can accommodate such disagreements. Her strategy is to argue that moral reasoners can be faultless in making an objectively false moral judgement if they followed the rele…Read more
  • Editorial
    Studia Philosophica Estonica 1 (1): 1. 2008.
  •  1485
    Meta-Externalism vs Meta-Internalism in the Study of Reference
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (3): 475-500. 2013.
    We distinguish and discuss two different accounts of the subject matter of theories of reference, meta-externalism and meta-internalism. We argue that a form of the meta- internalist view, “moderate meta-internalism”, is the most plausible account of the subject matter of theories of reference. In the second part of the paper we explain how this account also helps to answer the questions of what kind of concept reference is, and what role intuitions have in the study of the reference relation.
  •  104
    The determination argument is supposed to show that a sentence's meaning is at least a truth-condition. This argument is supposed to rest on innocent premises that even a deflationist about truth can accept. The argument comes in two versions: one is metaphysical and the other is epistemological. In this paper we will focus on the epistemological version. We will argue that the apparently innocent first premise of that version of the argument is not as innocent as it seems. If the premise is und…Read more
  •  111
    Poor Thought Experiments? A Comment on Peijnenburg and Atkinson
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 37 (2). 2006.
    In their paper, 'When are thought experiments poor ones?' (Peijnenburg and Atkinson, 2003, Journal of General Philosophy of Science 34, 305-322), Jeanne Peijnenburg and David Atkinson argue that most, if not all, philosophical thought experiments are "poor" ones with "disastrous consequences" and that they share the property of being poor with some (but not all) scientific thought experiments. Noting that unlike philosophy, the sciences have the resources to avoid the disastrous consequences, Pe…Read more