•  31
    Gettiered Beliefs are Genuine Beliefs
    Logos and Episteme 10 (2): 217-224. 2019.
    In recent articles in this journal Benoit Gaultier and John Biro have argued that the original Gettier cases and the ones closely modelled on them fail, and the reason for the failure is that the subject in these cases does not actually have the belief that would serve as a counterexample to the justified-true-belief analysis of knowledge. They claim that if our evidence pertains to a particular individual (as in the first case) or to the truth of one of the disjuncts (as in the second case), we…Read more
  •  58
    Doxastic Deontology and Cognitive Competence
    Erkenntnis 86 (3): 687-714. 2019.
    The paper challenges William Alston’s argument against doxastic deontology, the view that we have epistemic duties concerning our beliefs. The core of the argument is that doxastic deontology requires voluntary control over our beliefs, which we do not have. The idea that doxastic deontology requires voluntary control is supposed to follow from the principle that ought implies can. The paper argues that this is wrong: in the OIC principle which regulates our doxastic duties the “can” does not st…Read more
  •  19
    Clarifying our Ideas in Persuasion Dialogue
    Informal Logic 36 (4): 473-499. 2016.
    Persuasion dialogue sometimes helps us to clarify our ideas; this paper attempts to find out what clarification consists in. It criticizes Walton’s view, which explains clarification as making implicit commitments explicit and proposes a different approach according to which clarification consists in replacing narrowly individuated views with epistemically better ones which retain elements of the earlier views. It also argues that clarification so conceived is not one of the main goals of persua…Read more
  • Metafizika: Lehet - de minek?
    Magyar Filozofiai Szemle 1. 2001.
  •  63
    Intentionality: Past and Future (edited book)
    Rodopi. 2005.
    This book contains eleven original papers about intentionality. Some explore current problems such as the status of intentional content, the intentionality of perception and emotion, the connections between intentionality and normativity, the relationship between intentionality and consciousness, the characteristics of the intentional idiom. Others discuss the work of historical figures like Locke, Brentano, Husserl and Frege.
  •  340
    Are Quine’s Two Indeterminacy Theses Compatible?
    Acta Analytica 14 (23.). 1999.
    The paper seeks to show that Quine’s theses concerning the underdetermination of scientific theories by experience and the indeterminacy of reference cannot be reconciled if some of Quine’s central assumptions are accepted. The argument is this. Quine holds that the thesis about reference is not just a special case of the other thesis. In order to make sense of this comment we must distinguish between factual and epistemic indeterminacy. Something is factual indeterminate if it is not determined…Read more
  •  567
    Lakatos, Reason, and Rationality
    In G. Kampis L. Kvasz & M. Stöltzner (eds.), Appraising Lakatos: Mathematics, Methodology, and the Man, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 73-83. 2002.
    Lakatos's methodology, if analysed as belonging to the demarcationist-rationalist program launched by Popper gives some interesting conclusions concerning the feasibility of the project: (1) Rationalism cannot provide arguments against relativism. (2) A theory of scientific rationality cannot be defended without relying on scientific authorities. (3) A historical justification of scientific rationality does not show that the procedures that are rational according to the theory are truth-conduciv…Read more
  •  583
    The paper examines how Brandom can respond to two objections raised against another sort of inferentialism, conceptual role semantics. After a brief explanation of the difference between the motivations and the nature of the two accounts (I), I argue that externalism can be accommodated within Brandomian inferentialism (II). Then I offer a reconstruction of how Brandom tries to explain mutual understanding (III-IV). Finally I point out a problem in Brandom’s account, which is this. Brandom’s inf…Read more
  •  339
    Lockean Ideas as Intentional Contents
    In Gabor Forrai George Kampis (ed.), Intentionality: Past and Future, . 2005.
    The paper argues for the view advocated by Yolton that Locke's ideas are best viewed as intentional contents. Drawing on Smith and McIntyre's distincition between object- and content-theories of intentionality I seek it show that it belongs to the second category. The argument relies mainly on the analysis of Locke's discussion of meaning, the reality and adequacy of ideas and real essence.
  •  52
    Review of Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews--Online. 2002.
    The book is an outgrowth of a 1998 conference held at the Nicholas Copernicus University in Toru (Poland), for which Hilary Putnam was the keynote speaker. It contains eleven papers with responses by Putnam, and is divided into two parts, one on pragmatism and one on realism. Each part is prefaced by a short and well-focused introduction by Urszula M. Zeglen, which may be useful for those who did not keep up with the development of Putnam’s thought since the late seventies. Some papers are direc…Read more
  •  514
    Conceptual Role Semantics and Naturalizing Meaning
    Croatian Journal of Philosophy 8 (24): 337-348. 2008.
    In this paper I will do three things. One, to explain why conceptual role semantics seems an attractive theory of meaning (I). Two, to sketch a version of it which has a good chance of withstanding some of the standard objections (II-III). Three, to see what follows from this version with respect to the naturalization of meaning (IV)
  •  3379
    The present volume has grown out of a conference organized jointly by the History of Philosophy Department of the University of Miskolc and the History and Philosophy of Science Department of Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), which took place in June 2002. The aim of the conference was to explore the various angles from which intentionality can be studied, how it is related to other philosophical issues, and how it figures in the works of major philosophers in the past. It also aimed at facil…Read more
  •  503
    What Mathematicians' Claims Mean : In Defense of Hermeneutic Fictionalism
    Hungarian Philosophical Review 54 (4): 191-203. 2010.
    Hermeneutic fictionalism about mathematics maintains that mathematics is not committed to the existence of abstract objects such as numbers. Mathematical sentences are true, but they should not be construed literally. Numbers are just fictions in terms of which we can conveniently describe things which exist. The paper defends Stephen Yablo’s hermeneutic fictionalism against an objection proposed by John Burgess and Gideon Rosen. The objection, directed against all forms of nominalism, goes as f…Read more
  •  21
    This systematic development of the internal realist approach, first developed by Hilary Putnam, tries to steer a middle course between metaphysical realism and relativism. It argues against metaphysical realism that it is open to global skepticism and cannot cope with conceptual pluralism. Against relativism it is claimed that there are mind-independent constraints on the validity of our claims to knowledge. The book provides a moderately verificationist account of semantics and novel explanatio…Read more
  •  45
    From the method of proofs and refutations to the methodology of scientific research programmes
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7 (2): 161-175. 1993.
    Abstract The paper is an attempt to interpret Imre Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP) on the basis of his mathematical methodology, the method of proofs and refutations (MPR). After sketching MSRP and MPR and analysing their relationship to Popper's and Poly a's work, I argue that MSRP was originally conceived as a methodology in the same sense as MPR. The most conspicuous difference between the two, namely that MSRP is fundamentally backward?looking, whereas MPR is p…Read more
  •  4995
    Locke on Substance in General
    Locke Studies 10 27-59. 2010.
    Locke’s conception of substance in general or substratum has two relatively widespread interpretations. According to one, substance in general is the bearer of properties, a pure subject, something which sustains properties but itself has no properties. I will call this interpretation traditional, because it has already been formulated by Leibniz. According to the other interpretation, substance is general is something like real essence: an underlying structure which is responsible for the fact…Read more
  • A Defense of Internal Realism: Reference, Truth and Conceptual Schemes
    Dissertation, University of Notre Dame. 1993.
    The purpose of the dissertation is to defend and elaborate on internal realism, a doctrine first put forward by Hilary Putnam. Chapter 1 surveys the current philosophical conceptions of truth and reference, a necessary background for the ensuing discussion. Chapter 2 explains the metaphysical realism vs. internal realism controversy. Internal realism is construed as consisting of three theses: the ontological mind-dependence of the world, verificationism about truth , and conceptual relativism .…Read more
  •  95
    Grounding Concepts: The Problem of Composition
    Philosophia 39 (4): 721-731. 2011.
    In a recent book C.S. Jenkins proposes a theory of arithmetical knowledge which reconciles realism about arithmetic with the a priori character of our knowledge of it. Her basic idea is that arithmetical concepts are grounded in experience and it is through experience that they are connected to reality. I argue that the account fails because Jenkins’s central concept, the concept for grounding, is inadequate. Grounding as she defines it does not suffice for realism, and by revising the definitio…Read more
  •  228
    Argumentation without Arguments Proper
    In Gizella Horváth, Rozália Klára Bakos & Éva Bíró-Kaszás (eds.), Ten Years of Facebook, The Third Argumentor Conference, Partium Press, Debrecen University Press. 2014.
    The purpose of the paper is to draw attention to a kind of rational persuasion which has received little attention in argument studies even though its existence is acknowledged in other fields. I start with a brief analysis of the debates conducted in the comments on a philosophical blog. The posts are addressed to a non-academic audience, always end with a problem, and the reader is invited to offer a solution. In the comments we hardly ever find arguments in the usual sense, i.e. in the sens…Read more