Krasimira Filcheva

According to the unrestricted version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), every truth has an explanation. I argue that there is defeasible methodological justification for belief in an unrestricted PSR. The argument is based on considerations about our cognitive limitations. It is possible that our cognitive limitations prevent us from even recognizing the explanatorily open character of some propositions we can now represent: the fact that these propositions are explicable in the first place. If this is the case, then a proper recognition of our limitations and a standing goal of reasoning to attain complete explanatory knowledge justify the adoption of an unrestricted PSR.

The aim of this article is to argue against the real possibility of languages without subject‐predicate structure, so‐called feature‐placing languages. They were first introduced by Strawson (1959/1990), later given formal expression through Quine's Predicate Functor Logic (Quine, 1960, Quine, 1971/Quine, 1976, Quine, 1992), and further elaboration in (Hawthorne & Cortens, 1995). I argue that, on the presumption that feature‐placing languages are not mere notational variants on first‐order languages, the idea of such languages is incoherent. The argument for this view rests on two highly plausible views about the conditions for the possibility of sentential meaning in natural languages. If accepted, these two views jointly imply that the sentences of feature‐placing languages lack sufficient internal structure to meet the conditions for sentential meaning. Feature‐placing languages cannot then count as genuine languages.

The dream sceptic argues that our ordinary beliefs are not justified because we cannot know that we have not always been dreaming. This is the Always Dreaming Hypothesis (ADH). I develop the traditional coherence objection to dream scepticism and argue that the coherence objection can be reformulated in a way that makes it both plausible and defensible. Considerations about the incoherence of dreams can be given probabilistic expression in a way that shows ADH to be highly improbable. Given the evidence of coherence, ADH can be rationally rejected. Even if ADH is augmented with causal information sufficient to account for the coherence and order of conscious experience, the resulting dream scepticism would then reduce to a BIV-type scepticism and thus fail to possess independent sceptical force.

Is it possible for there to be facts about reality with a logical structure that is in principle unrepresentable by us? I outline the main motivations for thinking that this question should receive a positive answer. I then argue that, upon inspection, the view that such structurally ineffable facts are possible is self-defeating and thus incoherent. My argument is based on considerations about the fundamental role that the purely formal concept of an object plays in our propositional representations and its intimate connection with subject-predicate structure.