Heimir Geirsson

There is an important difference between a thought that is directed towards a particular object and a thought that is not so directed. For example, there is a difference in my thoughts about my brother, and my thoughts about brothers, more generally. The first has the earmarks of singular thought, while the latter does not. After showing that there is no agreement about the nature of singular thought, I revisit early Russell to find greater clarity. I then advance a version of Millianism that builds on early Russell’s view of singular thought. I argue that the advocates of the direct reference view who argue that being on the receiving end of a name is sufficient for having singular thoughts about the object named have not provided good reasons for their views. Passing on a name can provide the recipient with a general understanding of the name, but not specific understanding. That is, when acquiring the name, the recipient may not learn the identity of the object named as this very object which, I argue, is required for one having singular thoughts of that object.

There is obviously tension between any view which claims that the object denoted is all that names and simple referring terms contribute to propositions expressed by sentences in which they appear and the apparent a posteriority of identity statements containing different but codesignative names. Frege solved the tension by adopting a description theory of names. The direct designation theorist cannot do the same, for that would amount to abandoning the theory. Instead, she has to provide one of two solutions; (a) argue that although Hesperus is Hesperus and Hesperus is Phosphorus express the same proposition their epistemic status differs such that one's justification of the proposition expressed by the former but not the latter is a priori, or (b) argue that both Hesperus is Hesperus and Hesperus is Phosphorus express a priori truths. I will argue for a version of option (a), and that while coreferential names can be freely substituted in simple belief contexts, they cannot be freely substituted in contexts involving justification.

This concise anthology collects important historical and contemporary readings on the central ethical theories, including Divine Command Theory, Consequentialism, Deontology, Virtue Ethics, and Feminist Ethics. Each section includes two or three of the most important contributions to the field, together with brief introductions from the editors. This new third edition offers expanded coverage of meta-ethics through the addition of thought-provoking readings from Susan Wolf, Gilbert Harman, and others. The number of selections from women authors has also increased.

There is an important difference between a thought that is directed towards a particular object and a thought that is not so directed. For example, there is a difference in my thoughts about my brother, and my thoughts about brothers, more generally. The first has the earmarks of singular thought, while the latter does not. After showing that there is no agreement about the nature of singular thought, I revisit early Russell to find greater clarity. I then advance a version of Millianism that builds on early Russell’s view of singular thought. I argue that the advocates of the direct reference view who argue that being on the receiving end of a name is suffi cient for having singular thoughts about the object named have not provided good reasons for their views. Passing on a name can provide the recipient with a general understanding of the name, but not specific understanding. That is, when acquiring the name, the recipient may not learn the identity of the object named as this very object which, I argue, is required for one having singular thoughts of that object.

This paper argues that conceptual engineering comes in many guises, often depending on what type of concept is being engineered. Engineering a classical concept, one that stems from Plato and Frege, is very different from engineering, e.g., a prototype concept or an exemplar concept. The former are abstract and have necessary and sufficient satisfaction conditions. The latter, on the other hand, can and do differ from one person to the next and thus have the earmarks of conceptions. While it is tempting to argue that classical concepts are of natural kinds while prototype and/or exemplar concepts are of socially constructed kinds, the paper argues that such classification is not tenable. Many of our concepts of natural kinds are prototype concepts, and many socially constructed kinds are specified with necessary and sufficient conditions and so are have the earmarks of classical concepts. While the discussion of conceptual engineering has mostly focused on classical concepts and how scholars can, do, and perhaps should ameliorate them, the paper emphasizes the importance of other types of concepts and how they can be engineered.

This is an anthology of landmark essays in the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and cognitive science since 1950. It includes essays that aim to reflect the fact that philosophy and the science of mind and language have close historical and conceptual ties. Each section begins with a brief and simple overview highlighting the issues and recommending other readings. The combination of this editorial material with a selection of classic essays makes this anthology a very flexible tool for introductory courses in cognitive science, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology as well as courses devoted to contemporary analytic philosophy. However, the book also contains significant advanced and recent material, making it suitable for more advanced stud, including beginning graduate courses.

I argue that Frege's puzzle can extend beyond semantics and to, for example, pictures and scent. Accordingly, attempted solutions to the puzzle should not focus solely on semantics. Solutions that do so can at best provide a partial solution to the puzzle. They will not provide a solution that explains the broader phenomenon, including the one where I, as a child, learned the identity of Clark Kent and Superman without possessing their names. Below I will provide a solution that accounts for the typical Frege case as well as my childhood case. The solution will, accordingly, not be a semantic solution. Instead it will focus on information we have on objects and how we organize and access the information. The solution I will provide is psychological and not semantic in nature. At the same time I will show that the solution I provide aligns itself well with Millianism.

Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons have written a number of articles where they use their Moral Twin Earth thought experiment to attack the new moral realism. The new moral realism is based on advances made in the philosophy of language that allows us to introduce synthetic definitions of moral terms. The Moral Twin Earth thought experiment relies in crucial ways on the use of intuitions. Specifically, it relies on the intuitions that were Earthers and Twin Earthers to meet, they would be able to have genuine moral disagreements. Horgan and Timmons rely on that intuition when they argue that the meaning of the relevant terms on Earth and Twin Earth must be the same. I will argue that we can accept that Earthers and Twin Earthers can have genuine moral disagreement while at the same time claim that the terms they use have different referents and so different semantic meaning. That is, having genuine disagreements does not require that the semantic meaning or the reference of the terms used in the debate being the same.

This Handbook offers students and more advanced readers a valuable resource for understanding linguistic reference; the relation between an expression (word, phrase, sentence) and what that expression is about. The volume’s forty-one original chapters, written by many of today’s leading philosophers of language, are organized into ten parts: I Early Descriptive Theories II Causal Theories of Reference III Causal Theories and Cognitive Significance IV Alternate Theories V Two-Dimensional Semantics VI Natural Kind Terms and Rigidity VII The Empty Case VIII Singular (De Re) Thoughts IX Indexicals X Epistemology of Reference　 Contributions consider what kinds of expressions actually refer (names, general terms, indexicals, empty terms, sentences), what referring expressions refer to, what makes an expression refer to whatever it does, connections between meaning and reference, and how we know facts about reference. Many contributions also develop connections between linguistic reference and issues in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science.

The relations between our cognitions and what they are about have been much discussed in recent decades. A popular view used to be that the relation between a cognitive state and what it is about is a contingent affair, namely that my cognitive state might have been just as it actually is in the absence of the object it is of, or in the presence of a qualitatively identical object as the one it is of. A second position, one more in vogue now, is that we can distinguish between a wide and a narrow content, where the wide content is dependent on the object it is of while the narrow content is not. Ori Simchen rejects both of these views. Instead, he argues, there is a necessary connection between a cognitive episode and the object it is of. There are no narrow contents. Further, a name is necessarily of the object it names. There are natural kinds and individuals have essences that restrain the way they might be. Necessities abound.

This concise anthology collects important historical and contemporary readings on the central ethical theories, including Divine Command Theory, Consequentialism, Deontology, Virtue Ethics, and Feminist Ethics. Each section includes two or three of the most important contributions to the field, together with brief introductions from the editors. This new third edition offers expanded coverage of meta-ethics through the addition of thought-provoking readings from Susan Wolf, Gilbert Harman, and others. The number of selections from women authors has also increased.

The focus of this paper will be on singular thoughts. In the first section I will present Jeshion’s cognitivism; a view that holds that one should characterize singular thoughts by their cognitive roles. In the second section I will argue that, contrary to Jeshion’s claims, results from studies of object tracking in cognitive psychology do not support cognitivism. In the third section I will discuss Jeshion’s easy transmission of singular thought and argue that it ignores a relevant distinction between general and specific understanding of names. Finally, the last section will argue that conscious attention should replace Jeshion’s significance condition as a necessary condition for one to have a singular thought. The paper will show that we need to take seriously the acquaintance requirement for singular thoughts, as even the easy transmission of singular thoughts with the use of names will be called into question.

Gareth Evans and John McDowell have challenged the traditional reading of Frege according to which Frege accepted propositions that are not object dependent, i.e., propositions that can exist even though the proper names that occur in the sentences that express them do not refer. A consequence of the Evans‐McDowell interpretation of Frege is that if someone hallucinates that there is an oasis in front of her, then there is no thought of an oasis but only an illusion of a thought. No reference entails no sense, and no sense entails no thought.This paper will focus on Frege's views on the issue and, in particular, whether there is any evidence that the mature Frege, i.e., after he introduced the sense/reference distinction, did not accept propositions that are not object dependent. It will also address one of the consequences of the Evans‐McDowell reading of Frege, arguing that they have ignored one of his important insights into natural languages

In a couple of recent papers Deborah Tollefsen has argued that groups should be viewed as having some of the intentional and epistemic properties as do individuals. In “Organizations as True Believers” she argues that corporations really do have intentional states.1 In “Collective Epistemic Agency”2 she continues her development of group agency and she now argues that collectives can be genuine knowers. The target of her arguments is, naturally, the wide spread view that “knowers are individuals, and knowledge is generated by mental processes and lodged in the mind-brain.”3 According to Tollefsen, “An epistemic agent is a deliberator that is subject to epistemic assessment; she can be charged with incoherency, inconsistency, ambiguity, and so on.”4 Further, “To be a deliberator in the rich sense in which you or I deliberate is to be subject to the immediacy that is characteristic of reason. When we engage in reasoning (and assuming we have the appropriate desires) we are moved to act immediately or think in accordance with the reasons that we arrive at through deliberation.”5 When we identify which attitudes and acts should be shaped or informed, then such identification takes place from a point of view. Typically, the point of view is the first person singular I, but Tollefsen argues that reflections on group deliberation show that the we-concept often marks the point of view in question. So, Tollefsen argues in effect that 1. A group can be a deliberator 2. A deliberator, in the sense being discussed, is an epistemic agent 3. An epistemic agent can have knowledge 4. So a group can have knowledge. The bulk of Tollefsen’s paper, “Collective Epistemic Agency,” is focused on arguing that (1) is true, i.e., that a group can be a deliberator. One of the examples she uses to make her case involves the decision made by a college admissions committee. The three committee members consider each candidate and vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ depending on whether or not the candidate should be accepted into the program..

Plantinga grants that there are possible worlds with freedom and no moral evil, but he argues that it is possible that although God is omnipotent, it is not within God’s power to actualize a world containing freedom and no moral evil. Plantinga believes that the atheologian assumes that it is necessary that it is within an omnipotent God’s power to actualize these better worlds, but in fact, Plantinga argues, this is demonstrably not the case. Since so many philosophers have regarded Plantinga’s Free Will Defense to be a definitive solution to the logical problem of evil, the focus of the debate of the problem of evil has changed from the logical problem of evil to the evidential problem of evil. But we believe that the atheist tossed in the towel too early, and the theist celebrated victory too early. We will argue that Plantinga’s argument does not succeed. Mackie, incidentally, thought the same. He wrote “But how could there be logically contingent states of affairs, prior to the creation and existence of any created beings with free will, which an omnipotent god would have to accept and put up with? This suggestion is simply incoherent.” In this essay we argue that Plantinga fails to demonstrate that it is possible that God is omnipotent, and it is not within God’s power to actualize a world containing freedom but lacking moral evil. Thus Plantinga does not refute Mackie’s response to the Free Will Defense, and the point of Mackie’s question “Why could God not have made men such that they always freely choose the good?” still stands unrefuted.

The thesis that the necessary and the a priori are extensionally equivalent consists of two independent claims: 1) All a priori truths are necessary and 2) all necessary truths are a priori. In Naming and Necessity1 Saul A. Kripke gives examples of necessary but a posteriori truths, so he disagrees with the second leg of the thesis.2 His examples are of two types; on the one hand statements involving essential properties and on the other hand true identity statements. My concern will be with examples of the second type and whether they refute (2). (2), however, is ambiguous and can mean one of three things.

n Naming and Necessity Saul Kripke criticized descriptivist theories of proper names and suggested a ‘better picture’ as a replacement. But while the ‘better picture’ that Kripke provided was very interesting and stimulating, it was little more than a sketch of a theory that needed much work and refinement. While Kripke argued that proper names are not synonymous with definite descriptions or clusters of definite descriptions, he was silent on what the semantic contents of names might be. Further, he even speculated in the introduction to his book that the apparatus of propositions might break down given his arguments, thus further adding to the need to develop the agenda that he got underfoot. Still further, in his third lecture Kripke extended his account of proper names as being rigid designators to natural kind terms without providing arguments for such an extension and without arguing specifically that natural kind names are rigid designators. Consequently, it is not clear what one should think about his well known arguments regarding the epistemic and modal status of identity statements, such as ‘water is H2O.’

Recently there has been a surge of new Fregeans who claim that the direct designation theory, as understood by contemporary Russellians, does not, and cannot, account for the different cognitive significance of statements containing different but codesignative names or indexicals. Instead, they say we must use a fine grained notion of propositions; one which builds a mode of presentation into proposition in addition to including in them the object referred to by the name or indexical in the sentence expressing the proposition. Thus we have Mark Richard, John Perry, and Mark Crimmins championing theories that build the mode of presentation into propositions, making the mode of presentation affect the truth conditions of belief reports. What is interesting, though, is that all three accept the direct designationalists claim that proper names, indexicals, and demonstratives are directly referential.I present four problems for the direct designation theorists and argue that the problem the new Fregeans use to motivate their move to include cognitive significance in propositions is the least basic of the four problems. I then provide an account of beliefs of singular propositions which does not require us to build modes of presentations into propositions and which solves the problems posed for the direct designation theory.

Mark Timmons and Terry Horgan have argued that the new moral realism, which rests on the causal theory of reference, is untenable. While I do agree that the new moral realism is untenable, I do not think that Timmons and Horgan have succeeded in showing that it is. I will lay out the case for new moral realism and Horgan and Timmons’ argument against it, and then argue that their argument fails. Further, I will discuss Boyd’s semantic theory as well as attempts to improve upon it, raise serious problems for these semantic accounts, and suggest an alternative view that accounts for our use of moral terms.

Driven by the intuition that the propositions expressed by a=a and a=b, where ‘a’ and ‘b’ are codesignative names, differ in cognitive value, philosophers constructing theories of beliefs and belief attributions have been attracted to elements from both Frege’s and Russell’s theories. This, I will argue, has had the consequence that some of the theories entail that it is a necessary condition for making the astronomical discovery that Hesperus is Phosphorus that we make a mental discovery about our representations of Venus. I will discuss the motivation behind Frege’s and Russell’s views and present an example which makes it clear that we can make astronomical discoveries prior to making the mental discovery that two names, or two mental representations, are of the same object. The upshot of the discussion is that we should not build modes of presentation into propositions.

Most of the historically salient versions of the Cosmological Argument rest on two assumptions. The first assumption is that some contingeney (i.e., contingent fact) is such that a necessity is required to explain it. Against that assumption we will argue that necessities alone cannot explain any contingency and, furthermore, that it is impossible to explain the totality of contingencies at all.The second assumption is the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Against the Principle of Sufficient Reason we will argue that it is unreasonable to require, as the Principle of Sufficient Reason does, that any given whole of contingent facts has an explanation. Instead, it depends on the results of empirical investigation whether or not one should ask for an explanation of the given whole.We argue that if a cosmological argument invokes either of the two assumptions, then it fails to prove that a necessity is needed to explain the universe of contingent facts.

The general topic of this work is the information value of declarative sentences containing proper names. I begin by accepting the direct designation theory of names. The theory, however, does not appear to be able to account for the difference in information value between sentences like 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' and 'Hesperus is Hesperus'. In order to explain this difference I develop an account of belief that takes a novel approach to the contents of beliefs of propositions expressed by such sentences. ;If you have a de re attitude towards a proposition, you can believe it in several different ways. The difference corresponds to the various ways in which you can mentally represent the object in the proposition. I account for this difference by introducing a distinction between the information basis of a sentence, which is the proposition expressed by the sentence, and the information value of the sentence, which is a subjective notion that depends on how one understands the sentence. ;The implication of the theory on the relationship between the necessary and the a priori is significant. I agree with Kripke that true identity statements containing different codesignative names express necessary propositions, but we disagree on the epistemic status of those propositions. While he argues that they can be known only a posteriori, I argue that they also can be known a priori. Regarding sentences like 'stick S is one meter long', I disagree with Kripke, and argue that although we cannot know this a priori, there is a closely related sentence that qualifies as an example of the contingent a priori, namely 'the length S appears to have is one meter'