Olley Pearson

Chapter 8 shows that the argument of Chap. 7 has implications for other elements of language. For example, two sentences which differ only in respect of the names they contain may capture different facts about the world even if those names are co-referring. The same can be said of co-referring natural kind terms and co-denoting definite descriptions. However, it is argued that these implications are not worrying and in fact have independent support. For example, they are already independently defended by descriptive theories of meaning according to which reference is determined by descriptive content. These fine-grained distinctions in beliefs couple naturally with fine-grained distinctions between actions, though it is argued that they only require fine-grained distinctions between desires.

Chapter 10.1007/978-3-319-71973-3_6 argues that the rationality of an action derives entirely from reasons. It is not a matter of fulfilling normative requirements of other sorts. In particular, it is not a matter of embodying certain patterns of behaviour, such as desiring x if one desires y and believes x is the means to y. If patterns such as this are patterns rational behaviour fits, then this is not because these patterns have their own normative import. It is simply because they are patterns that are legislated by reasons.

Chapter 9 defends a cognitive theory of emotions according to which they represent the world to be a certain way and they are had for reasons. This enables the application of the lessons from rational action to emotions to show that the reasons emotions are had for are facts which the emotions represent. It is argued that these reasons can ground our everyday talk of the appropriateness of emotions in a way which other popular approaches to the normativity of emotions cannot. Furthermore, when combined with the fact that the tense of an emotion affects its appropriateness this shows that tensed emotions must capture facts not captured by tenseless ones.

The preceding chapters establish two points: tensed beliefs capture facts that tenseless ones do not and an individual’s first-personal beliefs capture facts that cannot be captured by non-first-personal beliefs or another individual’s beliefs. The former of these conclusions has been attacked on the basis of McTaggart’s paradox and Chap. 10 argues that this attack is mistaken. The second conclusion appears to conflict with Wittgenstein’s argument against a private language, though Chap. 10 argues that there is no real conflict here. It is also shown that the unique role of first-personal beliefs supports an emergentist theory of the self.

Chapter 3 introduces a little more terminology and examines an argument given by Perry that shows indexical language plays different roles to non-indexical language. It argues that Perry’s discussion specifically concerns rational actions and that this has been inadequately noted or accommodated by the tenseless theory of time, as offered by Mellor. It concludes that tensed and first-personal elements of language play unique roles and that in order to evaluate the implications this has for the philosophy of time we must look more closely at the nature of rational actions.

Chapter 7 brings together much of the preceding discussion to defend a tensed or A-theory of time. It argues that rationality demands tensed beliefs in place of tenseless ones and this can only be because the tensed beliefs capture reasons—that is, facts—that the tenseless beliefs do not. It also argues in a connected manner that first-personal beliefs capture facts that no non-first-personal beliefs do. In addition some time is spent clarifying the notion of fact which is used throughout the book.

Chapter 2 introduces some terminology and clarifies the debate between two theories of time: the tensed or A-theory, and the tenseless or B-theory. It examines Prior’s thank goodness argument which shows that tensed language can play different roles to tenseless language. It is argued that considerations of Prior’s argument that have been offered by Mellor and MacBeath fail to do justice to intuitions regarding the appropriateness of emotions. It concludes that tensed and tenseless utterances play different roles and that in order to get clear about the implications this has for the philosophy of time we must look more closely at the appropriateness of emotions.

It has recently been argued that foundationalists, those who take grounding to be well-founded, should not understand the well-foundedness of grounding as the condition that every grounding chain terminates in the downward direction, because this interpretation of well-foundedness fails to correctly classify certain complex grounding structures. Some structures that plausibly would be acceptable to the foundationalist are classified as not well-founded and others that plausibly would not be acceptable to the foundationalist are classified as well-founded. In this paper I provide a characterisation of well-foundedness in terms of termination that correctly characterises all these difficult cases. This acts as a response to these recent arguments. Furthermore, it allows us to better evaluate their importance: these arguments have not shown that foundationalists are wrong to harbour the intuition that grounding chains must terminate in the downward direction, rather, they have shown that foundationalists need to be more clear about this intuition and how it is born out in more complex grounding structures.

In this paper, I will argue that a prominent theory of rationality could ground an argument for the existence of a self. Specifically, a self that is only captured in first- personal beliefs, and which is hence distinct from the physical body, in so far as the latter can be captured in third-personal beliefs. First-personal beliefs are beliefs characteristically expressed with first-personal utterances. Perry has argued that first- personal beliefs are necessary for certain actions. On closer examination, the appropriate conclusion of Perry's arguments is that first-personal beliefs are necessary for rational actions. If one adopts a popular view of rationality according to which it consists in the coherence of one's attitudes, one can give first-personal beliefs a unique role in rationality without giving them a unique content. However, recently it has been argued that rationality consists in responding appropriately to the world. According to this latter theory of rationality, a belief is only necessary for a rational action in so far as one must have a belief in order to be aware of and respond to the world. On this latter theory, if first-personal beliefs are to have a unique role in rationality, first-personal beliefs must capture something unique about the world. The conclusions of the paper are twofold. Firstly, we ought to see the problems surrounding essential first-personal beliefs as bound up with rationality. Secondly, if we follow current trends in the philosophical study of rationality we could be led into conflict with common responses to these problems and towards the existence of a non-physical self.

This paper concerns acting for reasons and how this can inform debates about the metaphysics of time. Storrs-Fox (2021) has argued against the A-theory of time on the grounds that it cannot adequately account for the explanation of actions. Storrs-Fox assumes that explanation is forever. He argues that this is incompatible with the A-theory because the reasons people act for are the explanantia of their actions, though according to the A-theory these reasons, that is facts, often do not obtain forever and therefore nor do the explanations. I will argue that many particular explanatory relations are not forever because reasons for actions must often fade as a person cannot now have a reason to do something at an earlier time. Generally, people cannot affect the past and therefore cannot have rational obligations to do so. Therefore, the A-theory does not face the problem Storrs-Fox suggests. In fact, the A-theory says what ought to be said and accounts for the wider phenomena of responding to reasons better than the B-theory. It is often the case that an agent acts rationally only if that agent acts on the basis of a present tensed belief. This implies that present tensed beliefs capture facts that no tenseless beliefs do, because the rationality of an action is determined by the reasons an agent acts for, not the beliefs through which the agent is aware of these. However, the B-theory, unlike the A-theory, denies there are any facts thus uniquely captured by present tensed beliefs.

This book provides a new argument for the tensed theory of time and emergentism about the self. This argument derives in part from theories which establish our nature as rational and emotional beings whose behavior is responsive to reasons which are facts. It is argued that there must be reasons, hence facts, that can only be captured by tensed and/or first-personal language if our behavior is to be by and large rational and appropriate. This establishes the tensed theory of time and emergentism or dualism about the self, given the physical body can plausibly be fully described non-first-personally. In the course of this discussion the book also clarifies and defends a notion of fact and responds to McTaggart’s paradox and Wittgenstein’s private language argument.

Prior showed that one could be relieved that the exams were over and not that they finished before a certain date or before a certain entity. One might think that these differences in relief are responsive to differences in the world so that there is more to the exams being over than them finishing before a certain date or entity: there is a metaphysical tense. However, some have argued that these issues do not have any implications for the metaphysics of time because they can be explained with an evolutionary account: emotions can have a causal influence on events that come after them but not on events that come before them and so it evolutionarily advantageous that emotions that concern events after them feel and evaluate differently to those that concern events before them. Here I will argue that to date these evolutionary accounts remain insufficient and emotions continue to put pressure on those who deny there is a metaphysical tense. Prior’s case shows that tensed and tenseless emotions differ in appropriateness. This asymmetry of value is not explained by the evolutionary account because whether or not an emotion is tensed is quite independent of whether it comes before or after something.

Prior used our emotions to argue that tensed language cannot be translated by tenseless language. However, it is widely accepted that Mellor and MacBeath have shown that our emotions do not imply the existence of tensed facts. I criticise this orthodoxy. There is a natural and plausible view of the appropriateness of emotions which in combination with Prior’s argument implies the existence of tensed facts. The Mellor/MacBeath position does nothing to upset this natural view and therefore is not sufficient to block one drawing conclusions for the metaphysics of time from the nature of our emotions.

In a recent paper Barnes proposes to characterize ontological emergence by identifying the emergent entities with those entities which are both fundamental and dependent. Barnes offers characterizations of the notions of fundamentality and dependence, but is cautious about committing to the specifics of these notions. This paper argues that Barnes’s characterization of emergence is problematic in several ways. Firstly, emergence is a relation, and merely delimiting relata of this relation tells us little about it. Secondly, the group of entities delimited as dependent and fundamental do not appear to be the group of emergent entities. Rather, some entities appear to be dependent and fundamental and not emergent, whilst other entities appear to be emergent and not dependent and fundamental. The moral drawn is that in order to provide a characterization of emergence one must go beyond what Barnes says explicitly. It is also shown that a potentially fruitful way of doing this would be to further specify the notion of dependence at issue revealing it to be asymmetric and perhaps merely nomological.