Ram Neta

Sometimes, there are reasons for which we believe, intend, resent, decide, and so on: these reasons are the “bases” of the latter, and the explanatory relation between these bases and the latter is what I will call “the basing relation.” What kind of explanatory relation is this? Dispositionalists claim that the basing relation consists in the agent’s manifesting a disposition to respond to those bases by having the belief, intention, resentment, and so on, in question. Representationalists claim that the basing relation consists in the agent’s representing the bases as justifying the belief, intention, resentment, and so on, in question. This article shows that an adequate account of the basing relation requires a particular refinement and combination of these two views. On the hybrid account defended here, the basing relation involves a disposition exercise that is individuated by the agent’s object-involving de se representation of that very exercise as justifying.

My cat Percy and I both engage in inquiry. For example, we both might wonder where the food is, and look around systematically in an effort to find the food. Indeed, we might even recruit others to help us search for the food, and so engage in collaborative inquiry concerning the location of the food. But such inquiry, even when collaborative, does not amount to _research_. Why not? What distinguishes research from the kinds of inquiry in which Percy and I can both engage? You might think that research involves the exercise of distinctive skills or capacities, or that it involves focus on a special range of topics. But how can we specify the relevant skills, or the relevant range of topics? This paper articulates and defends an account of research that answers these questions. According to the present account, research is a form of inquiry _that is guided by the judgment that the answer to this very inquiry matters to our theoretical understanding_.