Volume 12, Issue 2

In this paper, I argue that an embodied cognition theorist has resources available to her to fulfill the explanatory role of communicative intention without postulating inner, private intentions, as is typically done by cognitivists. I argue for this conclusion by identifying a publicity requirement and a sensitivity requirement that must be satisfied by realizers of communicative intentions a theoretical posit that explains the difference between linguistic meaning, as in John means cats are mammals by his utterance cats are mammals, and other sorts of meaning, as in that bell means the train doors are closing. I then show that a cognitivist model and an embodied model of communicative intentions can satisfy these requirements. However, because the embodied model is more theoretically parsimonious than its cognitivist competitor, the embodied model is superior. In the first section, I argue that communicative intentions exhibit the properties of publicity and sensitivity and that whatever satisfies the role of communicative intentions in a theory about cognition must also exhibit those properties. In the second and third sections, I present a cognitivist model and an embodied model of communicative intentions and show that each model exhibits the properties of publicity and sensitivity. In the fourth section, I argue that while both models equally explain the data, the embodied model does so more parsimoniously than the cognitivist model, and this gives us good reason to endorse the embodied model. Finally, I present an objection concerning explanatory power on behalf of the cognitivist and reply to it.

Spinoza scholarship has a long history of heated debate over the apparent inconsistency in Spinoza's claim that the intellect is both identical to the body and yet nonetheless capable of existing beyond the destruction of the body. In this paper, I defend an interpretation of the eternity of the intellect in Spinoza that is consistent with mind-body identity. My interpretation is based on (a) an atemporal interpretation of eternity and (b) reflecting on Spinoza's often overlooked early discussions that relate to this question.

The recent debate in metaontology gave rise to several types of (more or less classical) answers to questions about equivalences between metaphysical theories and to the question whether metaphysical disputes are substantive or merely verbal (i.e. various versions of realism, strong anti-realism, moderate anti-realism, or epistemicism). In this paper, I will do two things. First, I shall have a close look at one metaphysical debate that has been the target and center of interest of many meta-metaphysicians, namely the problem of how material objects persist through time: the endurantism versus perdurantism controversy. It has been argued that this debate is a good example of a merely verbal one, where two allegedly competing views are in fact translatable one into each other they end up, contrary to appearances, to be equivalent. In my closer look at this debate, I will conclude that this is correct, but only to some extent, and that there does remain room for substantive disagreement. Secondly, and stemming from my considerations about the persistence debate, I will defend a metaontological view that emphasizes that when asking the question Are metaphysical debates substantive or verbal?, the correct answer is It depends. Some debates are substantive, some debates are merely verbal, and sometimes it is true that a problem or a question can be formulated in equally good frameworks where there is no fact of the matter as to which one is correct or where we just cannot know it. Furthermore, importantly, as my examination of the persistence debate will show, there is room for the view that a debate is largely merely verbal but not entirely and that some parts of it are substantive, and decidable by philosophical methods. It is possible, and it is the case with respect to the persistence debate, that inside a debate some points are merely verbal while other are places of substantive disagreement. A moral of this is that, at the end of the day, the best way to do meta-metaphysics is to do first-level metaphysics.

Economist and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen is known for his interest in human rationality. In considering rationality Sen brings forth the idea of the so-called reasoned scrutiny of thinking, which is essential also to his concept of human freedom. The recognition of the relevance of Aristotle and Adam Smith to Sen's thinking has already opened up the historical-philosophical basis of Sen's thinking. Kantian basis has, however, remained un-sufficiently recognized. By focusing on Immanuel Kant's account of reflective, especially aesthetic reflective judgments, we can see how it appears as a model for Sen's reasoned scrutiny of thinking. The recognition of the Kantian nature of Sen's thinking opens up a new perspective to Sen's critique of various narrow understandings of human rationality.

In his teleological antinomy in the Dialectic of the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment , Kant presents two competing views of the explanatory power of causal mechanism for a science of origins. Kant expresses both the positive (thesis) view and the negative (antithesis) view in the guise of merely regulative principles for the reflecting power of judgment. The regulativity of these principles is usually taken to entail: i . Kant's demotion of causal mechanism to an explanatory principle of heuristic, merely subjectively necessary status; ii . the possibility of mechanically inexplicable phenomena in nature. I argue that neither consequence ensues. Kant in both thesis and antithesis of his teleological antinomy is as firmly committed to the universal necessity of judging natural origins mechanistically as he ever was and would be. Accordingly, Kant is fully committed to the mechanical explicability of all causal processes (including organic processes) in nature. At issue in the antinomy is, instead, the universal sufficiency of judging natural origins mechanistically.

The aim of this article is to provide an epistemological account of the concept of a point of view. The focus of the article is componential and therefore different variables in the concept of a point of view will be discussed. The article concludes that the concept of a point of view refers to mental viewing or rational consideration, which has many constituents, some of which relate to the observing subject, some to the tools of observing, and some to the object of observation. Most components of points of view are related to the subject of the point of view and his or her interests.

In this paper, I survey the way Wittgenstein reacts to radical philosophical doubt in his On Certainty . He deems skeptical doubt in some important cases idle, pointless or otherwise negligible. I point out that several passages of On Certainty make it difficult to judge whether Wittgenstein intends to address a skeptic or a metaphysical idealist. Drawing attention to the anti-skeptical nature of Berkeley's idealism, I go on to argue that the question is far from trivial: rather, it affects the way we should evaluate Wittgenstein's arguments in On Certainty in general. I finally attempt to explain why Wittgenstein remained ambiguous about the target of his arguments, and discuss the possibility of making room for the idealism/skepticism distinction in On Certainty 's framework.