Alberto Voltolini

In H-N. Castañeda's ontology, a fundamental Fregean distinction is drawn between unsaturated and saturated entities, the former corresponding to predicative aspects of reality, the latter to individuals, that is, to items which can be referred to by means of singular terms1. Within saturated entities, Castañeda attempts to distinguish between abstract and concrete individuals. Sets and Platonic Forms of the F-ness-type are the typical examples of the former category2. As to the latter category instead, concrete individual guises represent both the bottom layer in a hypothetical ontological hierarchy of individuals which has Platonic Forms at its top, and the first step in the psychological process of world cognition, which moves from the most concrete object to the most abstract3. Among concrete individual guises, moreover, Castañeda draws a further ontological distinction between possible and impossible guises, according to the different behavior guises display with respect to the possibility of existing4. Both kinds of guises, however, share that feature which enables to qualify them as guises, i.e. that of being bundles of properties. Every guise is indeed constituted out of (a certain set of) properties, or better predicative aspects5. The predication to a guise of one of its constitutive properties is taken by Castañeda as the primary sense of predication. He calls it Meinongian, or internal, predication (in symbols: "a(F)", where "a" stands for a guise and "F" for one of its constitutive properties)6. For Castañeda, moreover, the main linguistic tool by means of which a guise is denoted is a definite description, insofar as such a description clearly reveals the properties which a guise internally possesses7. Thus, we can say that "the F- er is F" is a typical expression of an internal predication of a property F to the guise denoted by the definite description "the F". If we take "F" as a metavariable for properties, we can say that the above formulation corresponds to what Routley has called the Characterization Postulate8. Now what we want to scrutinize in this paper is, first, whether the following four theses of Castañeda's Guise Theory are really compatible..

In the course of his philosophical development, Jerry Fodor has indicated two sorts of non-broad (i.e., non-truthconditional) content of mental representations, namely content of mental state types opaquely taxonomized (de dicto content: DDC) and narrow content (NC) qua mapping function from contexts (of thought) to broad contents. According to the former conceptualization, mental state tokens which are truth-conditionally identical may be such that they cannot both truthfully ascribed to one and the same subject at the same time, for they differ in their respective DDC. In Fodor's own example, Oedipus' thoughts that he will marry Jocasta and that he will marry Mum are truth-conditionally identical, but different as far their DDC is concerned; one cannot indeed truthfully ascribe both thoughts to him simultaneously1. According to the latter conceptualization instead, mental state tokens of molecularly identical twins placed in different environments (such as Earth and Twin-Earth) are such that, although they differ in their truth-conditions, they share the same NC2. For instance, these twins respectively think that water quenches thirst and that twater (a liquid similar to water but its chemical composition) quenches thirst. Although these thoughts thus differ in broad content, they have the same NC: had the Twin-Earthling twin been brought up on Earth rather than on Twin-Earth where he actually lives, he would have thought that water quenches thirst rather than that twater quenches thirst3. According to Fodor's picture, both concepts are invoked for the purpose of psychology in order to account for one and the same thing, namely subjects' behavior. On the one hand, difference in behavior of a subject whose thought-tokens have the same truth-conditions may be ascribed to difference in the DDC of these tokens4. On the other hand, identity in behavior between two molecularly identical subjects whose thought-tokens have different truth-conditions is explained in terms of the NC- identity of these tokens5..

Although both belong to the domain of the nonexistent, there is an ontological distinction between ficta and possibilia. Ficta are a particular kind of abstract objects, namely constructed abstract objects which generically depend on authors for their subsistence. Moreover, they are essentially incomplete entities, in that they are correlates of finite sets of properties. - On the other hand, possibilia are concrete objects. Being a possible object is indeed being an entity that might have existed, that is, that might have been involved in the causal order. Besides, as an object existent in this sense may legitimately be qualified as complete, the incompleteness which pertains to possible objects is contingent, in that it regards them only with respect to the possible worlds in which they do not exist. This ontological distinction has a semantic correlate: whereas names for possibilia are full-fledged directly referential terms, names for ficta are synonymous with de facto rigid descriptions of a complex sort

According to Crane’s schematicity thesis (ST) about intentional objects, intentionalia have no particular metaphysical nature qua thought-of entities; moreover, the real metaphysical nature of intentionalia is various, insofar as it is settled independently of the fact that intentionalia are targets of one’s thought. As I will point out, ST has the ontological consequence that the intentionalia that really belong to the general inventory of what there is, the overall domain, are those that fall under a good metaphysical kind, i.e., a kind such that its members figure (for independent reasons) in such an inventory. Negatively put, if there are no things of a certain metaphysical kind, thoughts about things of that kind are not really committed to such things. Pace Crane, however, this does not mean that the intentionalia that are really there are only those that exist. For existence, qua first-order property, is no metaphysical kind. Thus, there may really be intentionalia that do not exist, provided that they belong to good metaphysical kinds.

There are two interpretations of what it means for a singular term to be referentially direct, one truth-conditional and the other cognitive. It has been argued that on the former interpretation, both proper names and indexicals refer directly, whereas on the latter only proper names are directly referential. However, these interpretations in fact apply to the same singular terms. This paper argues that, if conceived in purely normative terms, the linguistic meaning of indexicals can no longer be held to make these terms referentially indirect under the second interpretation. This result is then generalized to proper names, by ascribing them a normative meaning as well.

In one of its latest papers Timothy Williamson has drawn a distinction between two readings of the phrase "possible F", where "F" is a predicate variable: the predicative and the attributive. In what follows, on the one hand I will hold that the first reading naturally applies to the phrase "possible object", thereby supporting a moderata conception of possibilia as entities that possibly exist. Moreover, I will maintain that one such conception provides the best possible account of Tractarian objects. On the other hand, I will claim that the second reading of the phrase "possible state of affairs" supports a parsimonious ontology of states of affairs, according to which a possible state of affairs is nothing over and above the de re possibility its constituents have of being related in a certain way to each other. As a result facts, i.e. possible states of affairs actually obtaining, are the only genuine states of affairs that there are, or, to put it differently, for any given state of affairs it is redundant that it is a fact. Besides, I will also claim that, appearances notwithstanding, this ontology of Sachverhalten underlies the Tractatus itself. Finally, I will try to show how, again appearances notwithstanding, this thrifty ontology of Sachverhalten squares with the semantic theses of the Tractatus according to which an elementary proposition presents a possible state of affairs as its sense and it is true if ‘that’ possible states of affairs obtains.

In this paper I want to hold that contextualism – the position according to which wide context, i.e., the concrete situation of discourse, may well have the semantic role of assigning truth-conditions to sentences – may well accommodate (along with some nowadays established theses about the semantics of proper names) three data about fiction, namely, the facts that as far as discourse involving fiction is concerned, i) sentences about nothing are meaningful ii) they may be true in fiction iii) yet they may also be true in reality. Moreover, I also want to hold that such a contextualist accommodation does not depend on endorsing a realist stance about fictional entities, although such a stance gives the best truth-conditional explanation for such data, in particular iii).

Some years ago, Howard Wettstein provided an original defense of the New Theory of Reference (NTR), the doctrine that singular terms such as names and indexicals are directly referential terms (DRTs), contributing only their reference to the truth-conditions of the tokened sentence they occur in. Wettstein maintained that in order to be semantically adequate, NTR does not have to account for what he calls Frege’s data on cognitive significance, those puzzling facts about language that prompt one to think that meaning entails more than reference to (real) objects. He later put forward another, apparently paradoxical, thesis, namely that whatever this cognitive significance that explains Frege’s data is, it cannot be reduced to the representations one has in one’s mind. In what follows, however, I will first apply the notion of referential anaphorical transfer to mixed contexts in order to show that a New Theorist has to reject Wettstein’s initial thesis as it stands, although she may endorse a weaker version of it, one that especially tallies with his second thesis. I will further argue that, insofar as rejecting Wettstein’s initial thesis does not force the New Theorist to revert to a representional conception of cognitive significance, in particular one based on the notion of a mental file, the latter thesis is absolutely correct. It is thus fitted to become a cornerstone of the New Theory, whatever form of non-mentalistic interpretation the New Theorist might wish to give to the notion of cognitive significance.

In this paper, I want to argue for two main and related points. First, I want to defend Richard Wollheim’s well-known thesis that the twofold mental state of seeing-in is the distinctive pictorial experience that marks figurativity. Figurativity is what makes a representation pictorial, a depiction of its subject. Moreover, I want to show that insofar as it is a mark of figurativity, all seeing-in is inflected. That is to say, every mental state of seeing-in is such that the characterisation of the properties by which a certain subject is seen in a given picture as having refers to the design properties of the picture’s vehicle, i.e., to the visible surface properties of that vehicle that are responsible for the fact that one such subject is seen in it, precisely taken in such a design role. Finally, I will try to show that seeing-in is qualified by inflection independently of whether it is conscious or unconscious seeing-in

Tim Crane has maintained that intentional objects are to be conceived of as schematic entities, having no particular intrinsic nature. While I take this metaphysical thesis to be correct, I cast doubt on whether it excludes intentionalia, especially non‐existent ones, from the general inventory of what there is, as Crane seems to think it does. There is a tension here, since Crane uses intentionalia in order to individuate intentional states, but at the same time attempts to dispense with them. If my doubts are grounded, the tension disappears.

In questo paper, voglio prima di tutto rivendicare l’idea di Wollheim per cui il vedere-in, l’esperienza in cui consiste la percezione pittorica - un’esperienza fenomenologicamente sui generis fatta da due momenti percettivi - spiega il fenomeno della costanza percettiva. Per “costanza percettiva” intendo qui con Wollheim un particolare fenomeno di robustezza percettiva, cioè il fatto che il soggetto di una raffigurazione è esperito come non distorto, in quanto dato dalla stessa prospettiva, da qualunque punto di vista in cui lo spettatore si collochi per guardare la raffigurazione. Inoltre, voglio in particolar modo considerare l’impressione specifica di ‘essere seguito’ dallo sguardo del soggetto raffigurato che hanno gli spettatori di ritratti, o di tipi simili di raffigurazioni; un’impressione che consegue al fenomeno della costanza percettiva. Questa impressione, infatti, corrobora una particolare lettura di ciò in cui l’esperienza di vedere-in effettivamente consiste. Secondo tale lettura, nel momento configurativo di tale esperienza lo spettatore percepisce sia le proprietà meramente visibili di superficie sia le proprietà di design del veicolo raffigurativo. Tra queste proprietà di design vanno incluse anche le cosiddette proprietà di raggruppamento del veicolo, le proprietà per gli elementi di tale veicolo di essere ordinati lungo una certa direzione entro una determinata dimensione. Sulla base di tale momento, poi, nel momento ricognitivo dell’esperienza di vedere-in lo spettatore vede, in una maniera consapevolmente illusoria, tale veicolo raffigurativo come il soggetto della raffigurazione.

Reasons motivate our intentions and thus our actions, justify our beliefs, ground our hopes and connect our feelings of shame and pride to our thoughts. Given that intentions, beliefs and emotions are intentional states, intentionality is strongly connected with normativity. Yet what is more precisely their relationship? Some philosophers, notably Brandom and McDowell, contend at places that intentionality is intrinsically normative. In this paper, we discuss Brandom and McDowell’s thesis and the arguments they provide for its defence. In contrast to what they hold, we argue that neither reference intentionality nor content intentionality are intrinsically normative, although at least content intentionality has normative implications. More precisely, we argue that neither species of intentionality are normative from a semantical viewpoint, because being in an intentional state is not being in a state that is semantically correct or incorrect. Nevertheless, being in a state endowed with content may be a reason for believing or acting. Thus, we argue that content intentionality has normative implications. More precisely, we argue that any content is such that, if it is the content of a state that is sensitive to reasons - as judging paradigmatically is – then it entitles the subject of that state to have further states or to act in certain ways.

In (1959), Carnap famously attacked Heidegger for having constructed an insane metaphysics based on a misconception of both the logical form and the semantics of ordinary language. In what follows, it will be argued that, once one appropriately (i.e., in a Russellian fashion) reads Heidegger’s famous sentence that should paradigmatically exemplify such a misconception, i.e., “the nothing nothings”, there is nothing either logically or semantically wrong with it. The real controversy as to how that sentence has to be evaluated—not as to its meaning but as to its truth—lies at the metaphysico- ontological level. For in order for the sentence to be true one has to endorse an ontology of impossibilia and Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles.

Il est rare, en philosophie, qu'on rencontre un problème ayant reçu une solution définitive. Dans le cadre de la philosophie contemporaine du langage, cependant, la critique de Russell à Meinong fait souvent figure d'exception à la règle - ce que l'on ne peut, eu égard à certains aspects de la philosophie de Meinong, que déplorer. Selon l'interprétation courante, la théorie des descriptions définies de Russell - que Ramsey qualifia de “paradigme de philosophie” - aurait mis hors jeu une fois pour toutes la doctrine ontologique de Meinong, caractérisée par des thèses d’apparence paradoxale telles que : “il y a des choses telles qu’il n’y a pas de telles choses”, “l’objet est au-delà de l’être et du non-être”, “l’être-ainsi [le fait d’avoir des propriétés] précède l’existence (Dasein)”. Récemment pourtant, on a tenté, de toutes parts, de faire revivre la doctrine meinongienne. Je pense ici aux diverses propositions, toutes d’inspiration meinongienne, avancées par Castañeda 1989, Parsons 1980, Rapaport 1978, Routley 1980 et Zalta 1983. Mais bien que toutes ces propositions aient développé certaines intuitions meinongiennes de manière certainement plus raffinée d’un point de vue formel que Meinong lui-même, elles ont été perçues comme de purs modèles théoriques sans aucun doute intéressants, mais incapables en tant que tels de déplacer les termes de la question, comme Russell l’avait fait à l’égard de Meinong. Ainsi naît l’exigence de repenser le thème complet et d’évaluer dans quelle mesure la critique de Russell pose vraiment de sérieuses difficultés aux thèses meinongiennes. Nous verrons ainsi ce qu’il faut, dans ces dernières, considérer comme mort, et ce qui, au contraire, jouit toujours d'une validité objective. Si ce qui suit est plausible, nous découvrirons que ces thèses résistent pour la plupart aux critiques de Russell, à condition qu’on les considère de façon adéquate.

According to Jerry Fodor, meaningful expressions denoting no actual entity, like „unicom", do not constitute an exception to his project of semantic naturalization based on the notion of asymmetrical dependence between causal relations. But Fodor does not give any principled reason in order to show that, say, a non-unicom caused "unicom"-token means UNICORN, as he on the contrary does regarding a non-X caused "X"-token for any existing X. Nevertheless, his claim that one such expression has a mere denotational meaning can be accounted for, though in a non-naturalistic way. Suffice it that one appeals to the weak Meinongianism contained in the thesis that one can directly refer to possible entities by means of suitable fixing reference description

There is a list of desiderata that any good metaphysics of fictional entities should be able to fulfill. These desiderata are: 1) the nonexistence of fictional entities; 2) the causal inefficacy of suchentities;3)the incompleteness of such entities;4)the created character of such entities; 5) the actual possession by ficta of the narrated properties; 6) the unrevisable ascription to ficta of such properties; and 7) the necessary possession by ficta of such properties. (Im)possibilist metaphysics uncontroversially satisfy 1) and 2); Neo-Meinongian metaphysics satisfy 1), 2), 3), 5), 6), and 7); artefactualist or creationist metaphysics uncontroversially satisfy 1), 2), 3), and 4). Another metaphysics is needed in order to satisfy all such desiderata. In this chapter Idevelop such a metaphysics, claiming that a Syncretistic metaphysics that combines Neo-Meinongianism with Artefactualism achieves this purpose. According to Syncretism, ficta are hybrid entities individuated in terms of both a certain makebelieve narrative process and the set of properties that one such narration mobilizes. Toward the end of the chapter I consider some possible criticisms to this approach: its non-intuitiveness; ficta’s unnecessary proliferation; and troubles with creationism of any sort.

In this paper I want to hold that Wittgenstein’s later position on qualitative states, which sees them as triplets made out of three necessary components - stimulus, qualitative element and manifestability - allows for supervenience of such states over physical ones. Insofar as this is the case, such a position is more akin to naturalism that the one that has been recently defended by Kim, who allows for merely partial supervenience of qualia over physical states. Moreover, Wittgenstein’s conception stems out of a critical refinement of ideas he held in the mid-Thirties and that were developed by Schlick. Insofar as Schlick’s development is the recognized ancestor of Kim’s latest stance on qualia, one may take Wittgenstein’s later theses on qualia as a possible refinement in a naturalist direction of Kim’s own conception.