•  85
    Kripke, Quine, the ‘Adoption Problem’ and the Empirical Conception of Logic
    with Crispin Wright
    Mind 133 (529): 86-116. 2024.
    Recently, there has been a significant upsurge of interest in what has come to be known as the 'Adoption Problem', first developed by Saul Kripke in 1974. The problem purports to raise a difficulty for Quine’s anti-exceptionalist conception of logic. In what follows, we first offer a statement of the problem and argue that, so understood, it depends upon natural but resistible assumptions. We then use that discussion as a springboard for developing a different adoption problem, arguing that, for…Read more
  •  197
    Explaining musical experience
    In Kathleen Stock (ed.), Philosophers on music: experience, meaning, and work, Oxford University Press. 2007.
    I start with the observation that we often respond to a musical performance with emotion -- even if it is just the performance of a piece of absolute music, unaccompanied by text, title or programme. We can be exhilarated after a Rossini overture brought off with subtlety and panache; somber and melancholy after Furtlanger’s performance of the slow movement of the Eroica. And so forth. These emotions feel like the real thing to me – or anyway very close to the real thing. When one experiences th…Read more
  •  118
    Introduction
    In Paul Artin Boghossian & Christopher Peacocke (eds.), New Essays on the A Priori, Oxford University Press. pp. 1-10. 2000.
    This collection of newly commissioned essays, edited by NYU philosophers Paul Boghossian and Christopher Peacocke, resumes the current surge of interest in the proper explication of the notion of a priori. The authors discuss the relations of the a priori to the notions of definition, meaning, justification, and ontology, explore how the concept figured historically in the philosophies of Leibniz, Kant, Frege, and Wittgenstein, and address its role in the contemporary philosophies of logic, math…Read more
  •  17
    Analyticity
    In Bob Hale, Crispin Wright & Alexander Miller (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Wiley. 2017.
    This chapter aims to provide materials with which to substantiate the claim that, under the appropriate circumstances, the notion of analyticity can help explain how one might have a priori knowledge even in the strong sense. It argues that Implicit Definition, properly understood, is completely independent of any form of irrealism about logic. The chapter defends the thesis of Implicit Definition against Quine's criticisms, and examines the sort of account of the apriority of logic that this do…Read more
  •  130
    The Rule-Following Considerations
    In Alexander Miller & Crispin Wright (eds.), Rule-Following and Meaning, Mcgill-queen's University Press. pp. 141-187. 2002.
  •  112
    Normative Principles are Synthetic A Priori
    Episteme 18 (3): 367-383. 2021.
    I argue for the claim that there are instances of a priori justified belief – in particular, justified belief in moral principles – that are not analytic, i.e., that cannot be explained solely by the understanding we have of their propositions. §1–2 provides the background necessary for understanding this claim: in particular, it distinguishes between two ways a proposition can be analytic, Basis and Constitutive, and provides the general form of a moral principle. §§3–5 consider whether Hume's …Read more
  •  324
    New Essays on the A Priori (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2000.
    A stellar line-up of leading philosophers from around the world offer new treatments of a topic which has long been central to philosophical debate, and in ...
  •  70
    Realism and relativism about the normative
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    I defend normative realism—the claim that there are mind-independent, absolute normative facts—mostly by arguing against its rivals. Against mind-dependent theories of normativity, I argue that at least one highly influential version of such a view, Lewis's dispositional theory of value, is subject to at least three severe problems: the problem of the implausible contingency of value, the problem of ideal conditions, and the problem of lack of convergence. Against relativistic conceptions of nor…Read more
  •  36
    Extract: Maria Baghramian and Annalisa Coliva (henceforth, B&C) have written a superb, compendious book on various kinds of relativism (2019). While they give nuanced and sympathetic reconstructions of these views, it is illuminating to see them show, repeatedly and in detail, how each of these views succumbs to a familiar dilemma: a relativistic view requires that it be possible for two judgers to genuinely disagree with one another, even while their views count as ‘equally valid’. However, it …Read more
  • Normative Realism (edited book)
    . forthcoming.
    Normativity is both one of the most important and ubiquitous of phenomena and, despite its historical centrality to philosophy, one of the least understood. The idea that there might be objective, attitude-independent, truths about what we ought to do (morality), what we ought to believe (rationality) or what we ought to appreciate (aesthetics), has always seemed very puzzling to philosophers, even though ordinary thought seems steeped in such judgments. Up until quite recently, the received vi…Read more
  •  43
    Meaning and Scepticism
    In Tomás McAuley, Nanette Nielsen, Jerrold Levinson & Ariana Phillips-Hutton (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Western Music and Philosophy, Oup. pp. 785-804. 2020.
    This chapter revisits the classic questions whether absolute music can express extra-musical meaning and whether such meaning should be thought of as playing an important role in our understanding and appreciation of music. It argues that music’s expressive ability plays a central role in our conception of its phenomenology and value—in our perception of music as expressive and in its capacity to move us, both in the understudied generic sense, and in the sense of arousing specific emotions in u…Read more
  •  59
    Intuitions and the Understanding
    In Miguel Ángel Fernández Vargas (ed.), Performance Epistemology: Foundations and Applications, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 137-150. 2016.
    This chapter assumes that intuitions must play a central role in explaining a priori justification and looks at the conditions under which they would be able to do so. It argues that if an appeal to intuitions is to help, they must provide epistemological resources that go beyond those provided by explanations in terms of epistemological analyticity (appeals to conceptual understanding). Accounts, like Ernest Sosa’s, which reduce intuitions to attractions to assent, and which give the understand…Read more
  •  1
    This chapter revisits the question whether facts about intentional content can be understood in purely naturalistic terms. In a previous work, ‘The Rule-Following Considerations’, it was argued that Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein-inspired discussion of following a rule was, pace Kripke’s intention, best understood as showing that facts about intentional content resist naturalistic reduction. The message of this chapter is the same, although it differs from, and hopefully improves upon, the earlier w…Read more
  •  49
    Wittgenstein on Meaning (review)
    Philosophical Review 98 (1): 83. 1989.
    Review of Wittgenstein on Meaning by Colin McGinn
  •  2
    Inference, Agency, and Responsibility
    In Magdalena Balcerak Jackson & Brendan Jackson (eds.), Reasoning: New Essays on Theoretical and Practical Thinking, Oxford University Press. pp. 101-124. 2019.
    What happens when we reason our way from one proposition to another? This process is usually called “inference” and this chapter examines its nature. It revisits the author’s earlier attempts to explain the nature of the process of inference, and tries to further clarify why we need the type of “intellectualist” account of that process that he has been pursuing. In the course of doing so, the chapter traces some unexpected connections between our topic and the distinction between a priori and a …Read more
  •  119
    Debating the a Priori
    Oxford University Press. 2020.
    The book records a series of philosophical exchanges between its authors, amounting to a debate extended over more than fifteen years. Its subject matter is the nature and scope of reason. A central case at issue is basic logical knowledge, and the justification for basic deductive inferences, but the arguments range far more widely, at stake the distinctions between analytic and synthetic, and between a priori and a posteriori. The discussion naturally involves problems about the conditions for…Read more
  •  742
    Blind reasoning
    Supplement to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 77 (1): 225-248. 2003.
    The paper asks under what conditions deductive reasoning transmits justification from its premises to its conclusion. It argues that both standard externalist and standard internalist accounts of this phenomenon fail. The nature of this failure is taken to indicate the way forward: basic forms of deductive reasoning must justify by being instances of 'blind but blameless' reasoning. Finally, the paper explores the suggestion that an inferentialist account of the logical constants can help explai…Read more
  •  220
    Delimiting the Boundaries of Inference
    Philosophical Issues 28 (1): 55-69. 2018.
    In this short essay, I tackle, yet again, the question of the nature of inference and elaborate on the agential conception of inference that I've been pursuing (Boghossian 2014, 2016 and forthcoming). What's new in this essay is a better way of setting up the issue about the na- ture of inference; a better identification of the concerns that lie at the back of this way of thinking about the topic; and a response to some important criticisms that have been made of the agential view I've been advo…Read more
  •  130
    Relativism about Morality
    In Katharina Neges, Josef Mitterer, Sebastian Kletzl & Christian Kanzian (eds.), Realism - Relativism - Constructivism: Proceedings of the 38th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, De Gruyter. pp. 301-312. 2017.
    Many philosophers and non-philosophers are attracted to the view that moral truths are relative to moral framework or culture. I distinguish between two versions of such a view. I argue that one version is coherent but not plausible, and I argue that the second one can’t be made sense of. The upshot is that we have to make sense of at least some objective moral truths.
  • with Jonardon Ganeri, Abu Sway Mustafa, and Georgina Stewart
    . 2016.
  •  7
    Essays on Meaning and Belief
    Dissertation, Princeton University. 1987.
    The dissertation is in two parts. The first part consists of an extended essay on Saul Kripke's recent reflections on Wittgenstein's discussion of the concepts of meaning and following a rule. It is principally concerned to argue for the following claims: That Kripke is correct in claiming that there is an important sense in which any content property is a normative property. That, contrary to Kripke, recognition of this fact need not lead us to conclude that content properties are metaphysicall…Read more
  •  983
    Analyticity reconsidered
    Noûs 30 (3): 360-391. 1996.
    This essay distinguishes between metaphysical and epistemological conceptions of analyticity. The former is the idea of a sentence that is ‘true purely in virtue of its meaning’ while the latter is the idea of a sentence that ‘can be justifiably believed merely on the basis of understanding its meaning’. It further argues that, while Quine may have been right to reject the metaphysical notion, the epistemological notion can be defended from his critique and put to work explaining a priori justif…Read more
  •  140
    Analyticity
    In B. Hale & C. Wright (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Blackwell. pp. 331-368. 1996.
    This chapter aims to provide materials with which to substantiate the claim that, under the appropriate circumstances, the notion of analyticity can help explain how one might have a priori knowledge even in the strong sense. It argues that Implicit Definition, properly understood, is completely independent of any form of irrealism about logic. The chapter defends the thesis of Implicit Definition against Quine's criticisms, and examines the sort of account of the apriority of logic that this do…Read more
  •  533
    Relativist and constructivist conceptions of knowledge have become orthodoxy in vast stretches of the academic world in recent times. This book critically examines such views and argues that they are fundamentally flawed. The book focuses on three different ways of reading the claim that knowledge is socially constructed, one about facts and two about justification. All three are rejected. The intuitive, common sense view is that there is a way things are that is independent of human opinion, an…Read more
  •  291
    Unlike the relativistic theses drawn from physics, normative relativisms involve relativization not to frames of reference but to something like our standards, standards that we have to be able to think of ourselves as endorsing or accepting. Th us, moral facts are to be relativized to moral standards and epistemic facts to epistemic standards. But a moral standard in this sense would appear to be just a general moral proposition and an epistemic standard just a general epistemic proposition. Pu…Read more
  •  123
    O labirinto do relativismo moral
    Revista Inquietude 2 (2): 238-245. 2011.
    Portuguese translation of "The Maze of Moral Relativism" by Janos Biro.
  •  440
    Williamson on the A Priori and the Analytic (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (2): 488-497. 2010.
    This essay criticizes Williamson’s attempt, in his book, The Philosophy of Philosophy, to undermine the interest of the a priori–a posteriori distinction. Williamson’s argument turns on several large claims. The first is that experience often plays a role intermediate between evidential and merely enabling, and that this poses a difficulty for giving a theoretically satisfying account of the distinction. The second is that there are no constitutive understanding–assent links. Both of these claim…Read more
  •  207
    This essay attempts to clarify the project of explaining the possibility of ‘blind reasoning’—namely, of basic logical inferences to which we are entitled without our having an explicit justification for them. The role played by inferentialism in this project is examined and objections made to inferentialism by Paolo Casalegno and Timothy Williamson are answered. Casalegno proposes a recipe for formulating a counterexample to any proposed constitutive inferential role by imaging a subject who un…Read more
  •  318
    The Transparency of Mental Content
    Philosophical Perspectives 8 33-50. 1994.
    I believe that the notion of epistemic transparency does play an important role in our ordinary conception of mental content and I want to say what that role is. Unfortunately, the task is a large one; here I am able only to begin on its outline. I shall proceed somewhat indirectly, beginning with a discussion of externalist conceptions of mental content. I shall show that such conceptions violate epistemic transparency to an extent that has not been fully appreciated. Subsequently, I shall look…Read more