Danilo Suster

Metaphorical statements surprise us as literal falsehoods, but the interpretation reveals a special motive for the figurative use of the language. Donald Davidson objects to nonliteral meaning: “to suppose a metaphor can be effective only by conveying a coded message is like thinking a joke or a dream makes some statement which a clever interpreter can restate in plain prose.” Taking this remark as my starting point I analyze interpretative strategies for metaphors, jokes, riddles and counterfactual conditionals – all of them involve an initial incongruity and most of them require a certain blending of two different domains. I suggest that the ability to interpret metaphors is based on our ability to apprehend a special cognitive content associated with metaphors.

I discuss Smokrović’s work on the normativity of logic (Smokrović 2017, Smokrović 2018). I agree that the classical formal logic is not an adequate model for real-life reasoning. But I present some doubts about his notion of deductive logic and his proposal to model such reasoning in non-monotonic logic. No branch of formal logic by itself is likely to capture real-life inferential links (reasoned-inference). I use the logic of relevance as my case study and extend the pessimistic morals to modern systems of non-classical logic. Finally, I propose a more lax conception of normativty: there is a connection between logical assessment in the broad sense (as sanctioned by the notion of cogency) and the evaluation and criticism of reasoning.

I raise some questions about differentiations between methods, checking methods, and appropriate methods in terms of their modal profiles. Melchior argues that there can be sensitive checking methods which are not safe. I try to show that such methods are epistemically deficient. I introduce restricted sensitivity (RS) and investigate its checking profile. RS with respect to a proposition _p_ requires that we consider more non-p worlds (not just the closest ones) but not those which are irrelevant (outside a sphere of seriously possible worlds). Restrictedly sensitive methods (vacuously sensitive and strongly safe) based on the appropriate type of Bayesian reasoning might be sufficient for some kind of “modest” checking. Melchior defends a uniform account of checking based on insensitivity even in the case of necessary true propositions and he introduces the apparatus of impossible worlds. I argue that an unsatisfactory method for checking a necessary true proposition is a way of reaching a belief in the target proposition (different from the original one) which might easily not have delivered a true one. I also indicate some limitations of the idea that checking (and knowing) is essentially modal in character.

The debate on compatibility of fate with human responsibility lasted for five hundred years of the Stoic school and it is still with us in terms of contemporary discussions of the compatibility of determinism and free will. Chrysippus was confronted with the standard objection: It would be unjust to punish criminals “if human beings do not do evils voluntarily but are dragged by fate.” Chrysippus uses the famous illustration of the cylinder and cone, which cannot start moving without being pushed. However, when this has happened, from then on the cylinder rolls and the cone spins by their own nature. I explore the cylinder analogy and its modern relevance from the perspective of thought experiments. I argue that it helps us isolate the main causal factor (the locus of responsibility and agency) and insulate this factor from the rest of the causal history and causal background. The cylinder/cone analogy is a compatibilistic tool, a kind of “mental distillation” in which we separate in imagination those aspects (causal factors) which are relevant for moral responsibility from those which are not. I suggest, somehow anachronistically, but in line both with contemporary compatibilism and Chrysippian views on causal structure of agency that the actions of an agent are “fated” from the theoretical point of view, but they are up to her from the practical point of view.

I explore some issues in the logics and dialectics of practical modalities connected with the Consequence Argument (CA) considered as the best argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. According to Lewis (1981) in one of the possible senses of (in)ability, the argument is not valid; however, understood in the other of its possible senses, the argument is not sound. This verdict is based on the assessment of the modal version of the argument, where the crucial notion is power necessity (“no choice” operator), while Lewis analyses the version where the central notion is the locution “cannot render false.”Lewis accepts closure of the relevant (in)ability operator under entailment but not closure under implication. His strategy has a seemingly strange corollary: a free predetermined agent is able (in a strong, causal sense) to falsity the conjunction of history and law. I compare a Moorean position with respect to radical skepticism and knowledge closure with ability closure and propose to explain Lewis’s strategy in the framework of his Moorean stance.

Since Aristotle there are two main approaches in the explanation of begging the question (petitio): a dialectical mistake (an improper move in an argumentative dialogue) and an epistemic mistake. According to the latter begging the question is committed when the premises of an argument cannot be known independently of knowing the conclusion of the argument. Dialectical approaches use the notion of a commitment (acceptance, standpoint) and rules of dialogue as their basis. I propose a hybrid model, inspired by Jackson: the rationale for introducing commitments and rules is epistemic.

Some general, programmatic points about informal logic are addressed. The informal approach to argument analysis faces serious foundational problems which have been recognized by its practitioners – but informal logic has yet to come together as a clearly defined discipline. Another problem is the dilemma of the dialectician (Sextus Empiricus): informal logic is either trivial or powerless on its own (field expertise is needed). According to Johnson and Blair the central notion in theory of argument is cogency which replaces soundness. An argument is cogent if and only if (i) its premises are rationally acceptable, (ii) its premises are relevant to its conclusion and (iii) its premises provide sufficient reason to accept the conclusion. I propose to understand cogency as a broader notion that includes deductively valid inferences. The criteria of cogency are simply the basic ideals of scientific methodology which requires a respect for available evidence and “reasonable” inference, an awareness of alternatives and a willingness to modify or reject those beliefs that fail to conform to the evidence. Informal logic in the sense of elementary scientific methodology is concerned with proper reasoning and not with proper dialogue. Informal logic involves non-trivial argumentativeskills and abilities applied to the subject area and accessible to every normally intelligent and educated person.

EXPLAINING MODALITY There are two sources of our modal intuitions which have to be explained - physical (natural) modality and metaphysical modality. The problem of explanation is presented as a dispute between modal realism and modal anti-realism. Traditional explanations of modalities are classified according to the strength of their anti-realism. They are unsuccessful because they are not able to show how to extract modal properties out of something which is ultimately non-modal. Even the thesis of supervenience - modal properties supervene on non-modal, is explanatory inadequate. Supervenient (modal) properties must necessary covary with their subvenient (non-modal) properties. The modal force of this necessity is irreducible. I argue for modal realism, although I recognize epistemological difficulties of this position.

Cogency is the central normative concept of informal logic. But it is a loose evaluative concept and I argue that a generic notion covering all of the qualities of a well-reasoned argument is the most plausible conception. It is best captured by the standard RSA criterion: in a good argument acceptable (A) and relevant (R) premises provide sufficient (S) grounds for the conclusion. Logical qualities in a broad sense are affected by the epistemic qualities of the premises and “consequence” in a broad sense exhibits an interplay of form and content. There are four proposals for the premise—conclusion relation: (i) no strictly logical connection (“non-logical” consequence); (ii) one type of connection only (deductivism); (iii) a few types of connection (deduction, induction, perhaps conduction and analogical reasoning); (iv) many types of connection (argumentation schemes). Deductivism is a serious option but in its strong version, as the discussion about petitio shows, it fails to establish that arguments which are not cogent are thereby invalid. And weak deductivism, very attractive from the pedagogical point of view, has some deficiencies (implausible hidden premises; preservation of truth, not probability). I argue that the idea of a counterexample, when we regard certain components of the argument as fixed and others as variable, is the best approach to the analysis of the illative core of every-day arguments (the approach of David Hitchcock on material consequence).

Terry Horgan defends a new general metaphilosophical position called postanalytic metaphilosophy. I raise some critical points connected with the application of PAM to the problem of freedom. I question the distinction between opulent and austere construals of philosophical concepts. According to Horgan compatibilism comports better overall with the relevant data than does incompatibilism. I raise some objections. At the end I argue that contextualism is an inadequate explanation of incompatibilistic intuitions

Goldberg 2016 is a collection of papers dedicated to Putnam’s (1981) brain in a vat (‘BIV’) scenario. The collection divides into three parts, though the issues are inter-connected. Putnam uses conceptual tools from philosophy of language in order to establish theses in epistemology and metaphysics. Putnam’s BIV is considered a contemporary version of Descartes’s skeptical argument of the Evil Genius, but I argue that deception (the possibility of having massively false belief) is not essential, externalism does all the anti-skeptical work. The largest section in the collection covers Putnam’s model-theoretic argument (MTA) against metaphysical realism (MR) and its connections with the brain in vat argument (BVA). There are two camps—unifiers (there is a deep connection in Putnam’s thoughts on BVA, MTA and MR) and patchwork theorists and I try to provide some support for the second camp. All of the papers in the collection are discussed and the anti-skeptical potential of BVA is critically assessed.

Davies argues that the ontology of artworks as performances offers a principled way of explaining work-relativity of modality. Object oriented contextualist ontologies of art (Levinson) cannot adequately address the problem of work-relativity of modal properties because they understand looseness in what counts as the same context as a view that slight differences in the work-constitutive features of provenance are work-relative. I argue that it is more in the spirit of contextualism to understand looseness as context-dependent. This points to the general problem—the context of appreciation is not robust enough to ground modal intuitions about objective entities. In general, when epistemology dictates ontology there is always a threat of anti-realism, scepticism and relativism. Davies also appeals to the modality principle—an entity’s essential properties are all and only its constitutive properties. Davies understands essentiality in a traditional way: a property P is an essential property of an object o iff o could not exist and lack P. Kit Fine has recently made a convincing case for the view that the notion of essence is not to be understood in modal terms. I explore some of the implications of this view for Davies’ modal argument for the performance theory.

The consequence argument of van Inwagen is widely regarded as the best argument for incompatibilism. Lewis’s response is praised by van Inwagen as the best compatibilist’s strategy but Lewis himself acknowledges that his strategy resembles that of Lehrer. A comparison will show that one can speak about Lehrer-Lewis strategy, although I think that Lewis’s variation is dialectically slightly stronger. The paper provides a response to some standard objections of incompatibilists to the Lehrer-Lewis reply.

It is commonly accepted that those embedded conditionals of the type "if A, then if B, then C" we do understand, we understand as equivalent to sentences without embedded conditionals. This reduction is in classical logic achieved with the use of laws of exportation and importation. V. McGee even presents counterexamples to modus ponens which are based on the classical treatment of embedded conditionals and proposes to trade the validity of modus ponens for the validity of laws of importation and exportation. It is argued that for a large class of indicative conditionals the laws of exportation and importation are invalid. With the help of Stalnaker's selection function theory of conditionals and the distinction between valid and reasonable inferences it is shown that modus ponens is valid but can be unreasonable, whereas laws of importation and exportation are invalid, but still reasonable.

Putnam’s semantic argument against the BIV hypothesis and Sosa’s argument against dream skepticism based on the imagination model of dreaming share some important structural features. In both cases the skeptical option is supposed to be excluded because preconditions of its intelligibility are not fulfilled (affirmation and belief in the dream scenario, thought and reference in the BIV scenario). Putnam’s reasoning is usually interpreted differently, as a classic case of deception, but this feature is not essential. I propose to interpret BIV’s utterances as cases of reference failure best captured by truth-value gaps. Both anti-skeptical strategies are then vulnerable to the same type of objections (how do we know what state we are in or how do we know what kind of language do we speak).

How to accommodate the possibility of lucky true beliefs in necessary (or armchair) truths within contemporary modal epistemology? According to safety accounts luck consists in the modal proximity of a false belief, but a belief in a true mathematical proposition could not easily be false because a proposition believed could never be false. According to Miščević modal stability of a true belief under small changes in the world is not enough, stability under small changes in the cognizer should also (and primarily) be considered. I argue for a more traditional modal reliabilism based on the critical question: how easy is it for a belief to be false, given the way it was formed? A belief (a priori or a posteriori) is then agent-lucky when based on a specific method which might easily lead to a false belief in the target proposition. Miščević suggests a unifying approach in terms of virtue epistemology. It seems to me that this approach, if successful, will undermine the project that he started with: formulate an anti-luck condition in the frame of a modal theory of luck.

The gist of modal epistemology is expressed in the idea that you fail to know if you do believe truly but it is seriously possible for you to believe falsely. According to subjunctivism, this idea is captured by certain subjunctive conditionals. One formulation invokes a safety condition—“If S had believed P, then P would have been the case,” while the other invokes a sensitivity condition—“If P had been false, S would not have believed that P.” According to simple subjunctivism, such conditionals do not contrapose and Sosa derives important epistemological consequences which favor safety from this difference. However, simple subjunctivism is inadequate. I return to Goodman and his analysis of factuals and propose modal stability, which is restricted sensitivity or enhanced safety as a proper epistemic condition for the non-accidental connection between the basis for the belief and the relevant facts of the matter. The idea of modal stability combines robustness (benefi ts of safety) with responsiveness to facts (benefi ts of sensitivity) and recovers the original motivation for the relevant alternatives theory—when testing for claims of knowledge that p we ask what might be the case if not-p, but we ignore irrelevant possibilities. Epistemic modal conditions should be expressed in terms of conditionals of connection which contrapose within the limits of relevance.

Modal arguments for incompatibility of freedom and determinism are typically based on the “transfer principle” for inability to act otherwise (Beta). The principle of agglomerativity (closure under conjunction introduction) is derivable from Beta. The most convincing counterexample to Beta is based on the denial of Agglomeration. The defender of the modal argument has two ways to block counterexamples to Beta: (i) use a notion of inability to act otherwise which is immune to the counterexample to agglomerativity; (ii) replace Beta with a logically stronger principle Beta 2. I argue that the second strategy fails because the strengthened principle and Agglomeration together entail Beta. So this strategy makes sense only if Beta 2 is applied without Agglomeration. But if Beta 2 is used without Agglomeration, then the incompatibilist will undercut the rationale for the premise of his argument. I illustrate this point with the analysis of Warfield (1996) and his use of Beta 2 in the so called direct argument for incompatibilism.

According to the thesis of modal supervenience it is impossible that two objects be alike in their actual properties but differ in their modal properties. Some have argued that the concept of supervenience is inapplicable to the modal-actual case. Some have argued that the thesis of modal supervenience is trivially true. These arguments are refuted; a thesis of the supervenience of the modal on the actual is meaningful and nontrivial. The significance of the thesis is nevertheless limited by the problem of finding a nonmodal specification for the purported subvenient properties.

According to the received view, the regularity “All F’s are G” is a real law of nature only if it supports a counterfactual conditional “If x were an F (but actually it is not), it would be a G”. Popper suggested a different approach -- universal generalisations differ from accidental generalisations in the structure of their terms. Terms in accidental generalisations are closed, extensional and terms in laws of nature are open, strictly universal, intensional. But Popper failed to develop this point and used a mistaken and unnatural interpretation of counterfactual assumptions in order to defend the view that both laws of nature and accidental generalisations support counterfactuals. The idea that terms in laws of nature stand for intensions was developed twenty-five years later in the so called DTA theory, which explains laws of nature as relations between properties.

Ilhan Inan’s (2012) approach to curiosity is based on the following central theses: (i) for every question asked out of curiosity there is a corresponding term (definite description) that is inostensible for the asker (its reference is unknown) and that has the function of uniquely identifying an object; (ii) the satisfaction of curiosity is always in the form of com- ing to know an object as falling under a concept. This model primarily covers curiosity as our search for empirical objectual knowledge. In my critical reflections, I explore some phenomena of non-objectual curiosity which are left out or at least not sufficiently explored by Inan: curiosity as the search for explanation and understanding, and meta-curiosity— curiosity about the very representations, i.e. how to conceptualize a certain problem, and what defi nite descriptions to use in the first place.

Semifactuals and Epiphenomenalism Mental properties are said to be epiphenomenal because they do not pass the counterfactual test of causal relevance. Jacob (1996) adopts the defence of causal efficacy of mental properties developed by LePore and Loewer (1987). They claim that those who argue for the epiphenomenalism of the mental place too strong a requirement on causal relevance, which excludes causally efficacious properties. Given a proper analysis of causal relevance, the causal efficacy of mental properties is saved. I defend the counterfactual test and epiphenomenalism of the mental against this critique. In causal counterfactuals we hold everything the same, take out the causal property and see if the effect property occurs. We do not replace the causal property with a barely different property as presupposed by LePore and Loewer. But I recognize some general problems in making counterfactual claims about mental events, which raise doubts about the usefulness of the counterfactual test in general.

In the first, shorter part of the paper I point out some problems and potential misunderstandings connected with B. Berčić’s treatment of Nozick’s sensitivity condition for knowledge. In the second part of the paper I offer the condition of modal stability or limited sensitivity as a revision of Nozickian conditions for non-accidental connection between our belief and the truth of our belief. “When it is seriously possible for you to falsely believe that p,” that is a good reason for denying that you know that p. Sensitivity within limits requires that we consider more possible worlds than classical sensitivity, but not the worlds outside this sphere. The idea of modal stability combines robustness with responsiveness to facts

What is informal logic, is it ``logic" at all? Main contemporary approaches are briefly presented and critically commented. If the notion of consequence is at the heart of logic, does it make sense to speak about ``informal" consequence? A valid inference is truth preserving, if the premises are true, so is the conclusion. According to Prawitz two further conditions must also be satisfied in the case of classical logical consequence: (i) it is because of the logical form of the sentences involved and not because of their specific content that the inference is truth preserving; (ii) it is necessary that if the premises are true, then so is the conclusion. According to the prevalent criteria of informal logic an argument is cogent if and only if (i) its premises are rationally Acceptable, (ii) its premises are Relevant to its conclusion and (iii) its premises constitute Grounds adequate for accepting the conclusion (the ``ARG" conditions according to Govier). The ARG criteria characterize a certain broad kind of consequence relation. We do not (in general) have truth preservence in cogent arguments but if the premises are acceptable and other criteria are met, then so is the conclusion. We can speak about form in a loose sense and finally, there is rational necessity of the grounding or support relation. So a certain broad notion of logical consequence emerges from this comparison. The norms of ARG are norms of elementary scientific methodology in which argument is seen as embodying reasoning within a process of inquiry or of belief formation in subject areas accessible to every informed intellectual.

Counterfactual analysis of causation between particular events, combined with standard semantics for counterfactual conditionals, cannot express the idea that the cause is sufficient for the effect. Several authors have suggested that a more complex pattern of nested counterfactual conditionals is a better candidate for expressing the idea of causal connection. The most systematic account is developed by Kadri Vihvelin. She argues that a complex pattern of causal dependence, expressed by embedded conditionals, covers all the cases of causation and still yields an account of causal asymmetry. But the new account relies heavily on the use of backtracking conditionals, and no criterion is given for their evaluation. I will try to show that Vihvelin’s proposal is not superior to the standard account because it overlooks the disadvantages of a liberal theory of causal relata.