Robin Jeshion

Donnellan famously argued that while one can fix the reference of a name with a definite description, one cannot thereby have a de re belief about the named object. All that is generated is meta-linguistic knowledge that the sentence “If there is a unique F, then N is F” is true. Donnellan’s argument and the sceptical position are extremely influential. This article aims to show that Donnellan’s argument is unsound, and that the Millian who embraces Donnellan’s scepticism that the reference-fixer cannot secure the relevant de re belief faces a serious problem: Millianism about names plus scepticism about the reference-fixer’s de re belief conflicts with what seems to be an analytical thesis about the relationship between semantic content and understanding. The upshot is that the Millian has good reason to seek an alternative to scepticism

In In Defense of Pure Reason [IDPR], BonJour advances a version of moderate rationalism, the thesis that rational insight is an independent, though fallible, source of a priori epistemic justification. To demonstrate that this thesis must obtain, BonJour argues that rational insight is truth conducive and that no infallibilist rationalist theory could be correct. This article aims to establish two points: (1) BonJour’s argument for the fallibilist thesis is problematic because it invokes implausible conditions on justification, conditions that even BonJour rejects; (2) BonJour’s argument for the truth conduciveness of rational insight fails because it does not (and cannot) account for the truth-conduciveness of fallible rational insights.