Tom Stoneham

In this chapter we aim to clarify the debate over the particular question of whether there might have been nothing, and the more general question of the nature of modality, by introducing the concept of a Modal Theory and investigating its form. We begin by arguing that the question of whether there might have been nothing can be pursued independently of the question of the nature of possible worlds; that is, we can investigate what possibilities there are without having to investigate what possibilities are. A theory that governs what possibilities there are we call a ‘Modal Theory’. We then draw attention to the fact that modal theorists, to date, have typically assumed that modal theories are single-criterion, that is, that they have the form: p iff ◇q for nondisjunctive p. In response, we challenge the reasons we take for this assumption and then present an argument for Modal Theory having multiple criteria, a view we dub ‘modal pluralism’. We then investigate the forms of the axioms of such a multiple-criterion Modal Theory, and we conclude by drawing lessons for the debate over whether there might have been nothing.

This chapter includes three claims. The first is that while Berkeley treated the metaphysical problem of universals as unproblematically resolved in favor of nominalism (which he interpreted in an extreme form), he recognized the epistemic problem as a separate issue he needed to engage with and this is the primary positive contribution of his attack on abstraction. The second is that his solution to the epistemic problem is semiotic, but his semantics here is anthropocentric and pragmatic (in contrast to the semantics of visual language). The third is that this semantic theory, while it emphasizes the role of signs and thus has some affinities with formalism, has no special role for formal properties of signs and in fact makes formalism hard to achieve.

Dreams are often defined as sleeping experiences with phenomenal character similar to perceptions of the real world. Hence they pose a prima facie challenge to accounts of phenomenal character in terms of acquaintance relations. One response is disjunctivist: to give a different account of their phenomenal character from that of successful perceivings. I argue that, given the alleged frequency of dreaming on the standard model, this disjunctivist approach weakens the explanatory value of the acquaintance account of the phenomenal character of successful perceivings. Another response is to follow Malcolm and Dennett in denying that dreaming has phenomenal character at all. I present a cultural-social model of dreams and argue that we lack theory-neutral evidence of the phenomenal character of dreams and thus it is legitimate to choose between theories of dreaming on the basis of their fit with our best theory of the phenomenal character of successful perceivings, namely acquaintance.

There are many questions we can ask about time, but perhaps the most fundamental is whether there are metaphysically interesting differences between past, present and future events. An eternalist believes in a block universe: past, present and future events are all on an equal footing. A gradualist believes in a growing block: he agress with the eternalist about the past and the present but not about the future. A presentist believes that what is present has a special status. My first claim is that the familiar ways of articulating these views result in there being no substantive disagreement at all between the three parties. I then show that if we accept the controversial truthmaking principle, we can articulate a substantive disagreenment. Finally, I apply this way of formulating the debate to related questions such as the open future and determinism, showing that these do not always line up in quite the way one would expect

It is argued that a second-order belief to the effect that I now have some particular propositional attitude is always true (Incorrigibility). This is not because we possess an infallible cognitive faculty of introspection, but because that x believes that he himself now has attitude A to proposition P entails that x has A to P. Incorrigibility applies only to second-order beliefs and not to mere linguistic avowals of attitudes. This view combines a necessary asymmetry between 1st and 3rd person ascriptions with Objectivism about the propositional attitudes. The epistemic justification of second-order beliefs is shown to be a further question

Jessica Wilson has recently offered a more sophisticated version of the self-defeat objection to Cartesian scepicism. She argues that the assertion of Cartesian scepticism results in an unstable vicious regress. The way out of the regress is to not engage with the Cartesian sceptic at all, to stop the regress before it starts, at the warranted assertion that the external world exists. We offer three reasons why this objection fails: first, the sceptic need not accept Wilson’s characterization of the sceptical thesis and thus need not start her regress; second, even if she did commit to the regress, it would not undermine scepticism in the way Wilson envisages; and third, the appeal to mental state scepticism which is necessary to generate the second and subsequent steps in the regress is not justified.

This paper engages with the debate of how Berkeley reconciles restricting the objects of sense perception to what is immediately perceived with allowing that ordinary physical objects are amongst the objects of perception. Pitcher’s (1986) argument that Berkeley did not take the claim that we perceive ordinary physical objects to be ‘strictly true’ is rejected before we move to the debate between Pappas (2000) and Dicker (2006) about whether Berkeley equivocates about the definition of ‘immediate perception’ in a way which undermines his position. They agree that Hylas must accept indirect realism, but disagree about how this affects the cogency of his argument. However, Stoneham (2002) gave a different account of the dialectic in the First Dialogue that shows both Pappas and Dicker to be mistaken. This allows us to resolve Berkeley’s problem by appeal to the ordinary idea that we can perceive an object by perceiving part of it.

Tom Stoneham introduces an argument found in Berkeley’s essays on the immortality of the soul. This argument can be sketched out like so: all human appetites can (possibly, at least) be satisfied; there is a human ‘appetite for immortality’; thus, the appetite for immortality can (possibly) be satisfied. Stoneham introduces two objections to this argument, one which Berkeley is likely to have anticipated and one which draws on more contemporary insights. Stoneham then argues that Berkeley has the resources to overcome both objections. In putting forward this defence of Berkeley’s argument, Stoneham’s chapter offers novel insights into the role that sign-usage plays in his account of natural desires. As Stoneham reads him, Berkeley sees natural desires as signs of future experiences in roughly the same way that visual experiences serve as signs of tactual experiences in NTV.

Paul Boghossian has argued that Externalism is incompatible with privileged self-knowledge because (i) the Externalist can cite no property to be the reference of an empty natural kind concept such as the ether; (ii) without reference there is no content; hence (iii) either we do know on the basis of introspection alone whether an apparent natural kind thought has content or not, in which case we can infer from self-knowledge and a priori knowledge of Externalism alone to the existence in our environment of water, gold etc.; (iv) or we do not know, without empirical investigation, whether an apparent natural kind thought has content. An Externalist not wanting to accept either (iii) or (iv) can deny (i). All empty natural kind concepts refer to the necessarily uninstantiated property of being identical to nothing. Since they have different senses and self-knowledge is only held to extend to the existence and identity of sense, this is compatible with privileged self-knowledge, and Externalism is still true of the concepts

I aim to draw the reader's attention to an easily overlooked account of perception, namely that there are no perceptual experiences, that to perceive something is to stand in an external, purely non-Leibnizian relation to it. I introduce the Purely Relational account of perception by discussing a case of it being overlooked in the writings of G.E. Moore, though we also find the same move in J. Cook Wilson, so it has nothing to do with an affection for sense-data. I then discuss the relation between the PR account and recent disjunctive accounts of perceptual experience, and note that the PR account has some claim to be the only one that truly respects the directness of perception. The paper does not aspire to persuade the reader of the correctness of the neglected PR account, merely that it should be treated as a serious candidate in philosophical debates about perception.

Embodiment is a fact of human existence which philosophers should not ignore. They may differ to a great extent in what they have to say about our bodies, but they have to take into account that for each of us our body has a special status, it is not merely one amongst the physical objects, but a physical object to which we have a unique relation. While Descartes approached the issue of embodiment through consideration of sensation and imagination, it is more directly reached by consideration of action and agency: whenever we act upon the world, we act by moving our bodies. So if we can understand what an immaterialist such as Berkeley thinks about agency, we will have gone a fair way to understanding what he thinks about embodiment. §1 discusses a recent flurry of articles on the subject of Berkeley’s account of action. I choose to present Berkeley as a causal-volitional theorist (realist) not because I think it is the uniquely correct interpretation of the texts, but because I find it more philosophically interesting as a version of immaterialism. In particular, it raises the possibility of a substantive account of human embodiment which is completely unavailable to the occasionalist. §2 articulates an apparent philosophical problem for Berkeley qua causal-volitional theorist and show that Locke was aware of a related problem and had a solution of which Berkeley would have known. §3 distinguishes two interpretations of Berkeley’s famous denial of blind agency – as the assertion of a weak representational condition or a strong epistemic one – and provide evidence that there was a well-established debate about blind powers in the seventeenth century which took the metaphor of blindness as indicating an epistemic rather than merely representational failing. What remains to do in §4 is to consider whether Berkeley, with his own peculiar commitments, could in fact accept this account of agency.