-
6Deeply Contingent A Priori KnowledgePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2): 247-269. 2002.The argument is not, however, problem-free. First: while the meaning of s might not guarantee a verifying state of affairs, mightn’t the fact of one’s believing that s is true guarantee a verifying state of affairs? And mightn’t this fact be exploited to secure knowledge of truths that are deeply contingent? Second: the argument seems to rely on the principle that if I can conceive that not P is actually the case, then I do not know that P. But it is generally agreed that a knowledge-conferring …Read more
-
10DisjunctivismAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 80 (1): 145-216. 2006.[John Hawthorne] We examine some well-known disjunctivist projects in the philosophy of perception, mainly in a critical vein. Our discussion is divided into four parts. Following some introductory remarks, we examine in part two the link between object-dependent contents and disjunctivism. In part three, we explore the disjunctivist's use of discriminability facts as a basis for understanding experience. In part four, we examine an interesting argument for disjunctivism that has been offered by…Read more
-
20Are Beliefs about God Theoretical Beliefs? Reflections on Aquinas and KantReligious Studies 32 (2). 1996.The need to address our question arises from two sources, one in Kant and the other in a certain type of response to so-called Reformed epistemology. The first source consists in a tendency to distinguish theoretical beliefs from practical beliefs (commitments to the world's being a certain way versus commitments to certain pictures to live by), and to treat theistic belief as mere practical belief. We trace this tendency in Kant's corpus, and compare and contrast it with Aquinas's view and a mo…Read more
-
505Against Conservatism in MetaphysicsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 82 45-75. 2018.In his recent book, Daniel Korman contrasts ontological conservatives with permissivists and eliminativists about ontology. Roughly speaking, conservatives admit the existence of ‘ordinary objects' like trees, dogs, and snowballs, but deny the existence of ‘extraordinary objects', like composites of trees and dogs. Eliminativists, on the other hand, deny many or all ordinary objects, while permissivists accept both ordinary and extraordinary objects. Our aim in this paper is to outline some of o…Read more
-
44Scotus on UniversalsOxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 4 (1). 2016.Scotus contended that the humanity of Socrates has less than a numerical unity. But what does that claim come to? And how does Scotus’s position relate to familiar debates concerning the existence of universals and/or tropes? This paper provides a detailed sketch of Scotus’s view, arguing that it is not intrinsic to Socrates’s nature that it has numerical unity. The paper goes on to explain why Ockham’s attack on the coherence of Scotus’s argument does not succeed. What initially looks like a su…Read more
-
76Statistical evidence and incentives in the lawPhilosophical Issues 31 (1): 128-145. 2021.Philosophical Issues, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 128-145, October 2021.
-
1Seeing and DemonstrationPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (1): 199-206. 2000.We see things. We also perceptually demonstrate things. There seems to be some sort of link between these two phenomena. Indeed. in the standard case, the former is accompanied by a capacity for the latter. One sees a dog and can, on the basis of one’s perceptual capacities, think thoughts of the form ‘That is F’. But how strong is that link? Does seeing a thing (in the success sense of seeing) inevitably bring with it the capacity for perceptually demonstrating it? In what follows, we argue for…Read more
-
115Moral Vagueness and EpistemicismJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 23 (2). 2022.Epistemicism is one of the main approaches to the phenomenon of vagueness. But how does it fare in its treatment of_ moral_ vagueness? This paper has two goals. First, I shall explain why various recent arguments against an epistemicist approach to moral vagueness are unsuccessful. Second, I shall explain how, in my view, reflection on the Sorites can inform normative ethics in powerful and interesting ways. In this connection, I shall be putting the epistemicist treatment to work, engaging with…Read more
-
5Intrinsic Properties and Natural RelationsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (2): 399-403. 2001.Assuming that we find the concept of naturalness coherent, we shall no doubt wish to allow that certain relations count as highly natural. Many of us will think that various spatio-temporal and causal relations—is the cause of, is spatially separated from, is later than—are highly natural. Some of us will think that various basic semantic and mentalistic relations—refers to, attends to, believes.…--- are highly natural. Some will think that various logico-mathematical relations—being the success…Read more
-
14The methodology of political theoryIn Herman Cappelen, Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology, Oxford University Press. 2016.This article examines the methodology of a core branch of contemporary political theory or philosophy: “analytic” political theory. After distinguishing political theory from related fields, such as political science, moral philosophy, and legal theory, the article discusses the analysis of political concepts. It then turns to the notions of principles and theories, as distinct from concepts, and reviews the methods of assessing such principles and theories (e.g., the reflective-equilibrium meth…Read more
-
7The Grammar of Meaning: Normativity and Semantic DiscourseCambridge University Press. 1997.This study addresses a range of central topics in Anglo-American philosophy of language.
-
119The Necessity of MathematicsNoûs 54 (3): 549-577. 2020.Some have argued for a division of epistemic labor in which mathematicians supply truths and philosophers supply their necessity. We argue that this is wrong: mathematics is committed to its own necessity. Counterfactuals play a starring role.
-
159Operator arguments revisitedPhilosophical Studies 176 (11): 2933-2959. 2019.Certain passages in Kaplan’s ‘Demonstratives’ are often taken to show that non-vacuous sentential operators associated with a certain parameter of sentential truth require a corresponding relativism concerning assertoric contents: namely, their truth values also must vary with that parameter. Thus, for example, the non-vacuity of a temporal sentential operator ‘always’ would require some of its operands to have contents that have different truth values at different times. While making no claims …Read more
-
142Reply to ByrnePhilosophical Studies 178 (9): 3049-3054. 2020.In this reply to Alex Byrne’s comment on our book Narrow Content, we address Byrne’s claim that internalism is best framed as a thesis about properties of agents rather than properties of thoughts, arguing that a thought-based framework is better suited to standard internalist ambitions. We also discuss whether there is any prospect for a view in the internalist spirit that prescinds from multiplying indices beyond worlds, address Byrne’s ordinary language considerations against an ontology of t…Read more
-
19Reply to Bourget and MendeloviciInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.We detect three main critical ideas in Bourget and Mendelovici's (2022; henceforth BM) discussion of Narrow Content (Yli-Vakkuri and Hawthorne 2018). We will discuss each in this reply.
-
149Being in a position to knowPhilosophical Studies 179 (4): 1323-1339. 2022.The concept of being in a position to know is an increasingly popular member of the epistemologist’s toolkit. Some have used it as a basis for an account of propositional justification. Others, following Timothy Williamson, have used it as a vehicle for articulating interesting luminosity and anti-luminosity theses. It is tempting to think that while knowledge itself does not obey any closure principles, being in a position to know does. For example, if one knows both p and ‘If p then q’, but on…Read more
-
25Reply to PietroskiPhilosophical Studies 178 (9): 3055-3059. 2020.In this reply to Paul Pietroski’s comment on our book Narrow Content, we address his concern that we assume too tight a connection between sentences and contents and thus ignore polysemy. We argue that we were not relying on problematic disquotational assumptions and that our arguments are fully compatible with rampant polysemy. We also argue that Pietroski’s strategy of making room for a theoretically interesting kind of narrow content by giving up the idea that contents determine extensions at…Read more
-
446Doncaster pandas and Caesar's armadillo: Scepticism and via negativa knowledgePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 108 (2): 360-373. 2023.The external world sceptic tells some familiar narratives involving massive deception. Perhaps we are brains in vats. Perhaps we are the victim of a deceitful demon. You know the drill. The sceptic proceeds by observing first that victims of such deceptions know nothing about their external environment and that second, since we cannot rule out being a victim of such deceptions our- selves, our own external world beliefs fail to attain the status of knowledge. Discussions of global external world…Read more
-
Against Conservatism in MetaphysicsIn Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Metaphysics, Cambridge University Press. 2018.
-
The epistemic use of 'ought'In Lee Walters & John Hawthorne (eds.), Conditionals, Paradox, and Probability: Themes from the Philosophy of Dorothy Edgington., Oxford University Press. 2021.
-
40Relativism and Monadic TruthOxford University Press. 2009.Cappelen and Hawthorne present a powerful critique of fashionable relativist accounts of truth, and the foundational ideas in semantics on which the new relativism draws. They argue compellingly that the contents of thought and talk are propositions that instantiate the fundamental monadic properties of truth and falsity.