t’s causal ground, it remains a tricky question how we can justifiedly believe that the act is mo... more t’s causal ground, it remains a tricky question how we can justifiedly believe that the act is morally wrong on the basis of its ontological ground. It is important to note that in the cases of moral perception, moral properties depend both metaphysically and epistemically upon non-moral base properties. Thus, neither the example of anger nor the case of bombing is a good analogy with moral cases. While anger epistemically depends upon its manifestations, anger doesn’t metaphysically depend upon the manifestations. On the other hand, whereas the person’s death metaphysically (in particular, causally) depends upon the bombing, the person’s death doesn’t have to epistemically depend upon the bombing (one can know that the person is dead without knowing that it is caused by the bombing). There is a better analogy I wish to suggest. Social properties and entities seem to depend upon individuals’ psychological-behavioural properties in both a metaphysical and an epistemic way. For example, racial discrimination supervenes upon, or is realized by, the attitudes and behaviours of the individuals. Moreover, our knowledge of a society’s racial discrimination comes from our knowledge of people’s behaviours and attitudes in the society. But does it follow that we should be an error theorist or a sceptic about such social properties as racial discrimination? Many philosophers, myself included, say no. As some philosophers of social science argue, social entities can play a distinctive role (for example, a unifying role) that is not provided by psychological-behavioural properties in explaining certain phenomena—even though social entities cannot explain their psychological-behavioural base properties. If this is true, we have good epistemic reason to believe in social entities and properties. Perhaps we can in a similar way vindicate moral perception and moral knowledge. However, although I tend to think that an explanatory approach to moral perception is the ‘only game in town’, this approach is not available for Audi for two reasons. First, to adopt the explanatory approach seems to be committed to some kind of ethical naturalism, which is incoherent with Audi’s well-known intuitionist position. Second, Audi firmly denies the explanatory power of moral properties in many places. For him, any proposed explanation that assumes moral properties should be entirely replaced by an explanation that appeals only to non-moral base properties. So, it seems a hard task for Audi to vindicate moral perception (and moral sensibility) within his overall metaethical framework. I would be very interested to see how he would address this problem. Nonetheless, despite my questions and worries, this book is a must-read for anyone who is working in moral epistemology.
A verificationist theory of meaning takes the meaning of a statement to be given by the condition... more A verificationist theory of meaning takes the meaning of a statement to be given by the conditions that justify its assertion. A falsificationist theory takes those consequences of a statement that would reveal its assertion to have been incorrect as constitutive of its ...
This paper argues that naturalistic moral realism is vulnerable to a Hard Problem that has gone l... more This paper argues that naturalistic moral realism is vulnerable to a Hard Problem that has gone largely unrecognized. This problem is to explain how natural moral properties are detected by the folk. I argue that Thomas Nagel's persuasive case for moral realism ...
According to naturalism, philosophy is part of science. Its aim is thus to acquire synthetic know... more According to naturalism, philosophy is part of science. Its aim is thus to acquire synthetic knowledge of the world. Philosophy's methods of discovery - its use of a priori reasoning, conceptual analysis, and thought experiments - are legitimate to the extent that they further this broader scientific aim, naturalists aver. A very different view of philosophy sees it as distinct from science in both aim and methods. Philosophy aims to discover analytic knowledge through a priori reasoning on this competing view. This view of philosophy emphasizes rational intuitions as a source of evidence for the truth of the conclusions attained by a priori reasoning. Naturalism has been criticized as incompatible with realism, the view that the existence and nature of the world are independent of human conceptions of it. What naturalistic sense could be made of the idea that a scientific theory that passed every conceivable observational and theoretical test might yet be false? Isn't such a notion of truth, presupposed by realism, simply at odds with the idea that science is the arbiter of truth? Further, doesn't the attempt to marry naturalism and realism open the door to a radical kind of skepticism, one that makes it impossible to know that all our experiences of the world are not illusory? This chapter explores the nature of philosophy and philosophical theorizing from the perspective of naturalistic realism, arguing that naturalism and realism are compatible in spite of attempts to show they are not. The chapter reviews the leading arguments for incompatibility - Hilary Putnam's model-theoretic argument (MTA) and the brains-in-a-vat argument - and finds that they do not establish this conclusion. Further, it shows that the view that philosophy is distinct in aim and methods from science - a view that places its faith in the evidential warrant supplied by rational intuition - is at odds with what cognitive science has shown about the nature and reliability of these sorts of intuition.18 page(s
"The International Handbook of Psychology in Education" provides researchers, practitio... more "The International Handbook of Psychology in Education" provides researchers, practitioners and advisers working in the fields of psychology and education with an overview of cutting-edge research ...
Studies in language companion series, Dec 13, 2007
Collecting the work of linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, archaeologists, artificial inte... more Collecting the work of linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, archaeologists, artificial intelligence researchers and philosophers this volume presents a richly varied picture of the nature and ...
1. Preface 2. List of contributors 3. 1. Mental categories in natural languages (by Khlentzos, Dr... more 1. Preface 2. List of contributors 3. 1. Mental categories in natural languages (by Khlentzos, Drew) 4. 2. A culture-neutral metalanguage for mental state concepts (by Goddard, Cliff) 5. 3. Shape and colour in language and thought (by Wierzbicka, Anna) 6. 4. Universal and language-specific aspects of "propositional attitudes": Russian vs. English (by Gladkova, Anna) 7. 5. Mental states reflected in cognitive lexemes related to memory: A case in Korean (by Yoon, Kyung-Joo) 8. 6. Taste as a gateway to Chinese cognition (by Ye, Zhengdao) 9. 7. "Then I'll huff and I'll puff or I'll go on the roff!" thinks the wolf: Spontaneous written narratives by a child with autism (by Stirling, Lesley) 10. 8. Interaction between language and cognition in language development (by Winskel, Heather) 11. 9. What figurative language development reveals about the mind (by Colston, Herbert L.) 12. 10. Would you rather 'embert a cudsert' or 'cudsert an embert'? How spelling patterns at the beginning of English disyllables can cue grammatical category (by Arciuli, Joanne) 13. 11. Ethnobiological classification and the environment in Northern Australia (by Baker, Brett) 14. 12. Events masquerading as entities: Pseudorelative perception verb complements in Mawng (Australian) and Romance languages (by Singer, Ruth) 15. 13. Word and construction as units of categorization: The case of change predicates in Estonian (by Pajusalu, Renate) 16. 14. Categories and concepts in phonology: Theory and practice (by Fraser, Helen) 17. 15. You can run, but: Another look at linguistic relativity (by Wales, Roger) 18. Name index 19. Language index 20. Subject index 21. Table of contents of volume 1
t’s causal ground, it remains a tricky question how we can justifiedly believe that the act is mo... more t’s causal ground, it remains a tricky question how we can justifiedly believe that the act is morally wrong on the basis of its ontological ground. It is important to note that in the cases of moral perception, moral properties depend both metaphysically and epistemically upon non-moral base properties. Thus, neither the example of anger nor the case of bombing is a good analogy with moral cases. While anger epistemically depends upon its manifestations, anger doesn’t metaphysically depend upon the manifestations. On the other hand, whereas the person’s death metaphysically (in particular, causally) depends upon the bombing, the person’s death doesn’t have to epistemically depend upon the bombing (one can know that the person is dead without knowing that it is caused by the bombing). There is a better analogy I wish to suggest. Social properties and entities seem to depend upon individuals’ psychological-behavioural properties in both a metaphysical and an epistemic way. For example, racial discrimination supervenes upon, or is realized by, the attitudes and behaviours of the individuals. Moreover, our knowledge of a society’s racial discrimination comes from our knowledge of people’s behaviours and attitudes in the society. But does it follow that we should be an error theorist or a sceptic about such social properties as racial discrimination? Many philosophers, myself included, say no. As some philosophers of social science argue, social entities can play a distinctive role (for example, a unifying role) that is not provided by psychological-behavioural properties in explaining certain phenomena—even though social entities cannot explain their psychological-behavioural base properties. If this is true, we have good epistemic reason to believe in social entities and properties. Perhaps we can in a similar way vindicate moral perception and moral knowledge. However, although I tend to think that an explanatory approach to moral perception is the ‘only game in town’, this approach is not available for Audi for two reasons. First, to adopt the explanatory approach seems to be committed to some kind of ethical naturalism, which is incoherent with Audi’s well-known intuitionist position. Second, Audi firmly denies the explanatory power of moral properties in many places. For him, any proposed explanation that assumes moral properties should be entirely replaced by an explanation that appeals only to non-moral base properties. So, it seems a hard task for Audi to vindicate moral perception (and moral sensibility) within his overall metaethical framework. I would be very interested to see how he would address this problem. Nonetheless, despite my questions and worries, this book is a must-read for anyone who is working in moral epistemology.
A verificationist theory of meaning takes the meaning of a statement to be given by the condition... more A verificationist theory of meaning takes the meaning of a statement to be given by the conditions that justify its assertion. A falsificationist theory takes those consequences of a statement that would reveal its assertion to have been incorrect as constitutive of its ...
This paper argues that naturalistic moral realism is vulnerable to a Hard Problem that has gone l... more This paper argues that naturalistic moral realism is vulnerable to a Hard Problem that has gone largely unrecognized. This problem is to explain how natural moral properties are detected by the folk. I argue that Thomas Nagel's persuasive case for moral realism ...
According to naturalism, philosophy is part of science. Its aim is thus to acquire synthetic know... more According to naturalism, philosophy is part of science. Its aim is thus to acquire synthetic knowledge of the world. Philosophy's methods of discovery - its use of a priori reasoning, conceptual analysis, and thought experiments - are legitimate to the extent that they further this broader scientific aim, naturalists aver. A very different view of philosophy sees it as distinct from science in both aim and methods. Philosophy aims to discover analytic knowledge through a priori reasoning on this competing view. This view of philosophy emphasizes rational intuitions as a source of evidence for the truth of the conclusions attained by a priori reasoning. Naturalism has been criticized as incompatible with realism, the view that the existence and nature of the world are independent of human conceptions of it. What naturalistic sense could be made of the idea that a scientific theory that passed every conceivable observational and theoretical test might yet be false? Isn't such a notion of truth, presupposed by realism, simply at odds with the idea that science is the arbiter of truth? Further, doesn't the attempt to marry naturalism and realism open the door to a radical kind of skepticism, one that makes it impossible to know that all our experiences of the world are not illusory? This chapter explores the nature of philosophy and philosophical theorizing from the perspective of naturalistic realism, arguing that naturalism and realism are compatible in spite of attempts to show they are not. The chapter reviews the leading arguments for incompatibility - Hilary Putnam's model-theoretic argument (MTA) and the brains-in-a-vat argument - and finds that they do not establish this conclusion. Further, it shows that the view that philosophy is distinct in aim and methods from science - a view that places its faith in the evidential warrant supplied by rational intuition - is at odds with what cognitive science has shown about the nature and reliability of these sorts of intuition.18 page(s
"The International Handbook of Psychology in Education" provides researchers, practitio... more "The International Handbook of Psychology in Education" provides researchers, practitioners and advisers working in the fields of psychology and education with an overview of cutting-edge research ...
Studies in language companion series, Dec 13, 2007
Collecting the work of linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, archaeologists, artificial inte... more Collecting the work of linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, archaeologists, artificial intelligence researchers and philosophers this volume presents a richly varied picture of the nature and ...
1. Preface 2. List of contributors 3. 1. Mental categories in natural languages (by Khlentzos, Dr... more 1. Preface 2. List of contributors 3. 1. Mental categories in natural languages (by Khlentzos, Drew) 4. 2. A culture-neutral metalanguage for mental state concepts (by Goddard, Cliff) 5. 3. Shape and colour in language and thought (by Wierzbicka, Anna) 6. 4. Universal and language-specific aspects of "propositional attitudes": Russian vs. English (by Gladkova, Anna) 7. 5. Mental states reflected in cognitive lexemes related to memory: A case in Korean (by Yoon, Kyung-Joo) 8. 6. Taste as a gateway to Chinese cognition (by Ye, Zhengdao) 9. 7. "Then I'll huff and I'll puff or I'll go on the roff!" thinks the wolf: Spontaneous written narratives by a child with autism (by Stirling, Lesley) 10. 8. Interaction between language and cognition in language development (by Winskel, Heather) 11. 9. What figurative language development reveals about the mind (by Colston, Herbert L.) 12. 10. Would you rather 'embert a cudsert' or 'cudsert an embert'? How spelling patterns at the beginning of English disyllables can cue grammatical category (by Arciuli, Joanne) 13. 11. Ethnobiological classification and the environment in Northern Australia (by Baker, Brett) 14. 12. Events masquerading as entities: Pseudorelative perception verb complements in Mawng (Australian) and Romance languages (by Singer, Ruth) 15. 13. Word and construction as units of categorization: The case of change predicates in Estonian (by Pajusalu, Renate) 16. 14. Categories and concepts in phonology: Theory and practice (by Fraser, Helen) 17. 15. You can run, but: Another look at linguistic relativity (by Wales, Roger) 18. Name index 19. Language index 20. Subject index 21. Table of contents of volume 1
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