Alan Millar

An adequate theory of perception would be _Direct Realist_ in that it represents our perception of things in our surroundings to be routinely direct. This paper considers what Direct Realism is and how it constrains a theory of sensory experience. Some Direct Realists—relationalists—hold additionally that, for instance, the visual experiences implicated in visual perceptions of our surroundings are essentially relational in that they are episodes of awareness of mind-independent objects. There are Direct Realists who are not relationalists. This discussion explores what is at issue between these different camps. Relationalists think that non-relationalists cannot make sense of the connection between perception and demonstrative thought. It is argued that the reasons commonly given for pessimism on this score are not good. A constructive proposal on behalf of non-relationalists is sketched. The discussion concludes by briefly considering whether the non-relationalist conception of experience enables us to make sense of empiricism.

Books in this series have a first part providing an introduction to and history of a problem and a second part which builds up to the author's own views. For his historical treatment of the problems of explanation Ruben selects Plato, Aristotle, Mill, and Hempel. The space devoted to Plato and Aristotle is rather unexpected, but as with the other figures considered Ruben focuses on themes of relevance to current debates. Thus the discussion of Plato is largely on whether two "opposites" can explain the same thing and whether the same thing can explain two opposites. On Ruben's intricate analysis, the issue has a bearing on probabilistic dependency theories of explanation and on whether causes need be either necessary or sufficient for their effects. The discussion of Aristotle introduces among other things the idea that an adequate theory of explanation will have metaphysical underpinnings; it should, in other words, fit "what we think the world is like". Ruben is sympathetic to this idea and pursues it more fully later. Mill figures largely as a precursor of Hempel, but there is an interesting discussion of the relation between Mill's view that explanations are deductive arguments and his rather peculiar thesis that deduction is not "real" inference. Not surprisingly, the Hempelian account forms the main backdrop to Ruben's constructive analysis. Among the main topics discussed are the ontology of explanation, the standard counterexamples to the Hempelian account, the introduction of a causal condition into the analysis of explanation, the role of laws in relation to explanation, whether explanations are arguments, and whether all explanation is causal. The discussion is clear and thorough all the way through. In dealing with Ruben skillfully works up to the view that "facts explain facts only when the features and the individuals the facts are about, are appropriately conceptualized or named". This brings out the sense in which explanation is "epistemological." is crucial to the ensuing discussion, since if, as Ruben suggests, we "put the 'cause' back into 'because'" to deal with, the idea that laws must figure in explanantia, and the idea that explanations must be arguments, seem less compelling. Still, a further question is whether all singular explanations are causal. Ruben delivers a negative answer. There are explanatory identities. "A particular's having a property, described or conceptualized in one way, can explain the same particular's having the same property, described or conceptualized in another way". There is no self-explanation here given the favored ontology of explanation. There would be self-causation if such explanations were causal. So they are not causal. But even noncausal explanations explain something by "showing what is responsible for it or what makes it as it is". That, Ruben concludes, is what explanation is all about.

This book shows that ascriptions of beliefs and intentions are normative in that they have normative implications. Since there is no more to believing something and intending something than meeting the conditions for falling under, respectively, the concepts of so believing and of so intending, it follows that there is a normative dimension to the states of believing and intending. The idea is extended to all propositional attitudes via the assumption that attitudes with conceptual content have a normative dimension. The resulting picture is applied to issues about understanding people in terms of rationalizing explanations of what they think or do. An important concern is to explain how the fact that agents’ attitudes rationalize the performance of actions or the formation of beliefs on their part can be relevant to the explanation of what they do or believe. Along the way, there are discussions of normative commitments, differences between reasons for action and reasons for belief, practices conceived as essentially rule-governed activities, simulation theory, and the limits of mentalistic explanation.

A conception of the relation between reasons for belief, justified belief, and knowledge is outlined on which a belief is justified, in the sense of being well‐founded, only if there is an adequate reason to believe it, reasons to believe something are constituted by truths, and a reason to believe something justifies one in believing it only if it is constituted by a truth or truths that one knows. It is argued that, contrary to initial appearances, perceptual justification does not pose a problem for this view. The discussion touches upon the relation between believing for reasons and reflective knowledge.

In a discussion of rule-following inspired by Wittgenstein, Kripke asks us to consider the relation which holds between meaning plus by ‘+’ and answering questions like, ‘What is the sum of 68 and 57?’. A dispositional theory has it that if you mean plus by ‘+’ then you will probably answer, ‘125’. That is because, according to such a theory, to mean plus by ‘+’is, roughly speaking, to be disposed, by and large, and among other things, to answer such questions with the correct sum. Kripke wants to emphasize, by contrast, that if you mean plus by ‘+’ then, faced with the question, ‘What is 68 + 57?’ yououghtto answer, ‘125’. One could sum up the assumption about meaning which appears to underpin this criticism of dispositional theories in terms of the slogan that meaning is normative. Allan Gibbard gives us a way of reading that slogan which is suggested by Kripke's brief remarks:The crux of the slogan that meaning is normative … might be another slogan: thatmeansimpliesought. To use roughly Kripke's example, from statements saying what I mean by the plus sign and other arithmetic terms and constructions, it will follow that Ioughtto answer ‘7’ when asked ‘What's 5 + 2?’.