Sofia Bokros

The general theme of this thesis is the relation between language and philosophical thinking. More specifically, it explores some ways in which language can impact our philosophical thinking, as well as the mechanisms through which it does so. In the first paper, I focus on the nature of a specific kind of philosophical problem: the paradox. I defend a revisionary analysis of philosophical paradox, which highlights an underlying epistemic structure that is shared by many philosophical research problems. In addition, I argue that by examining this underlying epistemic structure, we gain a better understanding of what a satisfactory solution to a philosophical paradox ought to accomplish. The topic of the second paper is the idea that some expressions in natural language have meaning-constitutive principles: inference rules or sentences that are somehow constitutive of the meanings of those expressions. A challenge for the proponent of meaning-constitutive principles is to articulate what, exactly, the relation between semantically competent speakers and meaning-constitutive principles is. In this paper, I explore how this challenge can be met. The third paper closely connects to the discussion in the second paper. Given that the meanings of expressions can be fixed by meaning-constitutive inference rules, a possibility that seems to arise is that some meanings may be fixed by meaning-constitutive inference rules that fail to be necessarily truth-preserving, and thereby come out as inconsistent. This paper considers some arguments against the possibility of such inconsistent expressions. I conclude that none of the arguments considered succeed in ruling out the possibility of inconsistent expressions in natural languages. In the fourth and final paper, I address the question of whether so-called joint-carving concepts – concepts that track the fundamental structure of reality – are epistemically better than other concepts. Firstly, I explore the proposal that joint-carving thought is intrinsically valuable. Secondly, I discuss various attempts to explain the value of joint-carving by appealing to its instrumental epistemic value. I argue that, contrary to our intuitions, there appear to be no persuasive arguments to the effect that joint-carving concepts are epistemically superior.

How should we adjust our beliefs in light of the testimony of those who are in a better epistemic position than ourselves, such as experts and other epistemic superiors? In this paper, I develop and defend a deference model of epistemic authority. The paper attempts to resolve the debate between the preemption view and the total evidence view of epistemic authority by taking an accuracy-first approach to the issue of how we should respond to authoritative and expert testimony. I argue that when we look at the debate through the lens of accuracy, it becomes clear that matters are more complicated than either the preemption view or the total evidence view are able to account for. Consequently, a deference model, outlined within a credence-based framework, does a better job of capturing the relevant phenomena, and explaining how we should update our beliefs in response to epistemically authoritative testimony.