Can one have an aesthetically valuable experience of fiction that takes an immoral perspective? S... more Can one have an aesthetically valuable experience of fiction that takes an immoral perspective? Some have argued that one can. However, some important objections have been raised against this idea. Two objections are: that the immorality involved is confined to fictional reality, and that the aesthetic value of immoral fiction is dictated by a pluralistic attitude that not everyone accepts. My aim is to respond to these challenges and to argue, on the basis of two examples, that even an unlimited immoral perspective can enhance a widespread aesthetic value.
Suppose that fictional objects are abstract objects dependent for their existence and their ident... more Suppose that fictional objects are abstract objects dependent for their existence and their identity on the creative intentions of their authors. Is an author who intends to create indeterminately identical fictional objects committed to incoherent created objects? My claim is that she is not so committed. I argue that indeterminate identity is an ambiguous notion, allowing for an incoherent interpretation and for at least three coherent ones; and I show that if an author of fiction applies coherent indeterminate identity when creating fictional objects, she succeeds in creating coherent objects, whereas she fails to create fictional objects when she tries to apply incoherent indeterminate identity in her creation. In so doing, I offer a reply to a challenge first raised by Everett against realist philosophers on fictional objects and more recently reproposed by Friedell, allowing for the creation of fictional objects along the lines proposed by Evnine.
A debate is ongoing among philosophers, theoretical physicists, psychologists, and neuroscientist... more A debate is ongoing among philosophers, theoretical physicists, psychologists, and neuroscientists regarding whether the experience of the passage of time is a veridical representation of the universe or merely an illusion. This contribution suggests that a better understanding of illusions and hallucinations can lead to a deeper examination of the role of time experience.
I propose a different account of fictional objects from the ones already present in the literatur... more I propose a different account of fictional objects from the ones already present in the literature. According to my account, fictional objects are culturally created abstract objects dependent for their existence on the pretence attitude adopted by a group of people towards a single fictional content. My work is divided into three parts: in the first one, I present how fictional objects come into existence according to my proposal; in the second part, I illustrate how the existence of fictional objects so conceived may be ontically indeterminate; in the last part, I consider what happens when vague existence and indeterminate identity are claimed within fictional texts.
It is usually taken for granted that a necessary condition for knowing that P is the truth of P. ... more It is usually taken for granted that a necessary condition for knowing that P is the truth of P. It may therefore be claimed that if we assume that we gain some kind of knowledge through fiction (let us call it fictional knowledge) of P * , then P * should be true-in at least a certain sense. My hypothesis is that this assumption grounds the different ways adopted by philosophers for attributing truth-conditions to fictional sentences. My claim in this work is that fictional sentences do not have truth-values and truth-conditions, but I want to maintain that we gain some kind of knowledge through fiction: to this aim, I will characterize the objective content of fictional sentences not in terms of truth-conditions (which are usually described by appealing to rules of the language or rules of interpretation of language independent of the actual users), but in dispositional terms and I will define a necessary condition for fictional knowledge accordingly.
A couple of doubts are raised concerning Hofweber's internalist view of our talk about properties... more A couple of doubts are raised concerning Hofweber's internalist view of our talk about properties. The first doubt relates to the argument used in support of the internalist view of talk about properties: I suspect that one of the premises of the argument is not granted and therefore that the argument's conclusion is undermined. My second doubt concerns a claimed consequence of Hofweber's internalist view, i.e. conceptual idealism. It seems to me that conceptual idealism is incompatible with the internalist view of talk about properties. The distinction between natural objects and artefactual ones has a long tradition in metaphysics. It presupposes that objects may be divided into two kinds: (i) natural kinds, i.e. objects marking true joints in nature and (ii) artefactual kinds, i.e. objects whose classification reflects the actions and interests of human beings. This distinction takes some notions of metaphysical priority as basic: natural kinds are generally considered more fundamental than artefactual ones. But what does "natural" mean? What does "fundamental" mean? According to Thomas Hofweber (2009 and 2016a), a certain way of doing metaphysics considers notions like "natural", "fundamental" or "ultimate" as distinctively metaphysical and primitive, where this means that they are different from the notions we use in our everyday conversations and cannot be defined in more simple terms. The specificity and indefinability of these notions raises the concern that metaphysical distinctions are made using terms taken for granted without a correct and precise understanding of them. It is due to this concern that Hofweber denounces what he calls "esoteric metaphysics"-a metaphysics that aims to answer questions involving primitively metaphysical terms-and proposes instead "egalitarian metaphysics"-a form of metaphysics that tries to answer questions accessible to all and without special terms for metaphysical insiders. 1 Within egalitarian metaphysics, "being natural" and "being artefactual" are on a par, they are predicates of natural language, used within science and common conversations. When we use these predicates, we may want to talk about properties, we may want to consider for example whether the property of being natural is more (or less) frequently instantiated than the property of being artefactual. And, according to Hofweber, when we talk about properties, whatever we say depends on us and our minds and not on how the objects in the world are in themselves. In order to understand this claim, it is useful first of all to consider how he thinks we should answer the question: "Are there properties?" and then how he argues for the internalist view of our talk about properties. My reconstruction of his argument is not neutral, my aim is to raise a couple of doubts on his account of our talk about properties. 1 The distinction between esoteric and egalitarian metaphysics is central to Hofweber (2009) and Hofweber (2016a, ch. 13).
McTaggart's Paradox has been considered a special case of Lewis's Problem of Temporary Intrinsics... more McTaggart's Paradox has been considered a special case of Lewis's Problem of Temporary Intrinsics (see Craig (1998), Rea (2003) and Rettler (2012)). I argue instead that the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics cannot simply be applied to the Problem of the passage of time and therefore that McTaggart's Paradox cannot be a special case of the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics. This observation is relevant in order to point out the difference between the change in objects or events over time (i.e. the subject of Lewis's Problem) and the change (or passage) of time (i.e. the subject of McTaggart's Paradox).
Williams (2012) recently proposed the Normative Silence model of Indeterminacy in order to accoun... more Williams (2012) recently proposed the Normative Silence model of Indeterminacy in order to account for a single phenomenon running through all cases of indeterminacy and to reach consensus on the correct epistemic attitude to adopt towards borderline cases of paradigmatically vague predicates. Williams’s Normative Silence model says there is no general normative rule governing God’s and humans’ belief attitudes towards indeterminacies. I claim instead that human rationality and philosophical inquiry require general normative rules leading our belief attitudes towards indeterminacies and that God’s belief attitudes are more difficult to define than Williams assumes.
Weatherson [8] argues that whoever accepts classical logic, standard mereology and the difference... more Weatherson [8] argues that whoever accepts classical logic, standard mereology and the difference between vague objects and any others, should conclude that there are no vague objects. Barnes and Williams [1] claim that a supporter of vague objects who accepts classical logic and standard mereology should recognize that the existence of vague objects implies indeterminate identity. Even though it is not clearly stated, they all seem to be committed to the assumption that reality is ultimately constituted by mereological atoms. This assumption is not granted by standard mereology which instead remains silent on whether reality is atomic or gunky; therefore, I contend that whoever maintains classical logic, standard mereology and the difference between vague objects and any others, is not forced to conclude with Weatherson that there are no vague objects; nor is she compelled to revise her point of view according to Barnes and Williams's proposal and to accept that the existence of vague objects implies indeterminate identity.
Frege's puzzle about identity sentences has long challenged many philosophers to find a solution ... more Frege's puzzle about identity sentences has long challenged many philosophers to find a solution to it but also led other philosophers to object that the evidential datum it is grounded on is false. The present work is an elaboration of this second kind of reaction: it explains why Frege's puzzle seems to resist the traditional objection, giving voice to different and more elaborated presentations of the evidential datum, faithful to the spirit but not to the letter of Frege's puzzle. The final outcome is negative, no satisfactory formulation of the evidential datum is found and Frege's puzzle is challenged until a better formulation of it is found.
We commonly recognize vague predicates when we do not find boundaries to their extension. Would a... more We commonly recognize vague predicates when we do not find boundaries to their extension. Would an omniscient being find it equally impossible to establish such boundaries? I will argue that if a semantic theory of vagueness like supervaluationism is correct, we cannot answer the question. The reason is that, under this assumption, cooperative behaviour is not possible for an omniscient being.
K. Akiba and A. Abasnezhad (eds), Vague Objects and Vague Identity, Springer 2014, 2014
A deep-rooted assumption concerning indiscriminability between visual appearances is the followin... more A deep-rooted assumption concerning indiscriminability between visual appearances is the following: two things are indiscriminable in look to an observer at a particular instant of time if and only if they look the same to that observer at that particular instant of time. I argue that this deep-rooted assumption may be false. The argument is in two steps. First, it is argued that indiscriminability between appearances may be non-transitive. Then it is argued that non-transitive indiscriminability between appearances is inconsistent with the deep-rooted assumption. It is therefore deduced that the deep-rooted assumption may be false.
Finally, I argue that if the deep-rooted assumption may be false, then
one of the premises of the phenomenal sorites paradox may be false too.And this leaves open the possibility that vague phenomenal predicates are coherent and that phenomenal properties are ontologically legitimate.
Vagueness manifests itself (among other things) in our inability to find boundaries to the extens... more Vagueness manifests itself (among other things) in our inability to find boundaries to the extension of vague predicates. A semantic theory of vagueness plans to justify this inability in terms of the vague semantic rules governing language and thought. According to a supporter of semantic theory, the inability to find such a boundary is not dependent on epistemic limits and an omniscient being like God would be equally unable.
I argue that, contrary to what has been assumed by both Williamson and Hawthorne, an omniscient being like God cannot be a cooperative evaluator of a semantic theory of vagueness.
The supporter of vague objects has been long challenged by the following ‘Argument from Identity’... more The supporter of vague objects has been long challenged by the following ‘Argument from Identity’: 1) if there are vague objects, then there is ontically indeterminate identity; 2) there is no ontically indeterminate identity; therefore, 3) there are no vague objects. Some supporters of vague objects have argued that 1) is false. Noonan (Analysis 68: 174–176, 2008) grants that 1) does not hold in general, but claims that ontically indeterminate identity is indeed implied by the assumption that there are vague objects of a certain special kind (i.e. vague objects*). One can therefore formulate a ‘New Argument from Identity’: 1′) if there are vague objects*, then there is ontically indeterminate identity; 2) there is no ontically indeterminate identity; therefore, 3′) there are no vague objects*. Noonan’s strategy is to argue that premiss 1′) is inescapable, and, as a consequence, that Evans’s alleged defence of 2) is a real challenge for any supporter of vague objects. I object that a supporter of vague objects who grants the validity of Evans’s argument allegedly in favour of 2) should reject premiss 1′). The threat of the New Argument from Identity is thus avoided.
Dean Zimmerman focuses on the debate between a serious-tenser B-theorist and an eternalist A-theo... more Dean Zimmerman focuses on the debate between a serious-tenser B-theorist and an eternalist A-theorist concerning truth and truth-conditions of tensed propositions. According to Zimmerman, the only way for the A-theorist to distinguish herself from the B-theorist is to argue for the non-relative (temporary monadic) truth of tensed propositions denying some aspects of the doctrine of temporal parts. I claim instead that the A-theorist can argue for the non-relative truth of tensed propositions adopting tensed truth-conditions incompatible with the B-theorist's hypotheses.
I propose to consider the paradox of temporal becoming using conceptual instruments derived from ... more I propose to consider the paradox of temporal becoming using conceptual instruments derived from Lewis’ definition of intrinsic change. I will show that there are two possible solutions to this paradox, that the two solutions are conceptually incompatible and that they both solve the paradox at the cost of doing without temporal becoming. The problem I want to raise is: how should we consider temporal becoming? I suppose that, given these premises, the most obvious answer is that temporal becoming is unreal: the paradox of temporal becoming is a demonstration of the impossibility of temporal becoming; there are, of course, two different and competing models of the nature of time (i.e. the two solutions to the paradox), but they both exclude the reality of temporal change. I propose a different answer: temporal becoming is conceptually inaccessible, the paradox concerns our conceptual abilities, not reality in itself and the two possible solutions to the paradox of time reveal two possible conceptual attitudes towards a conceptually unattainable reality.
Analytic philosophers define their philosophical approach as a method and not as a shared doctrin... more Analytic philosophers define their philosophical approach as a method and not as a shared doctrine amongst adepts. But what is the method? This is not an easy question and Timothy Williamson-one of the more brilliant and sharper of analytic philosophers of our times-offers his answer in this book. Let me say from the beginning that this is the answer of an analytic philosopher who does believe that the analytic method is the only one philosophy may have. This may be disappointing for philosophers with a more ecumenic approach, who allow for many methods to be equally valuable, and who would have appreciated a proposal for a restricted philosophical methodology. But this is not something that can be expected from a philosopher such as Williamson, who has been working as a leading philosopher in the analytic tradition all his life and whose intent is to point out the weakness and the strength of the analytic tools adopted so far and give advice on how to go forward. The observation that the analytic tradition is the only one considered in the book is just briefly mentioned in the bibliographical notes at the end of the book and not considered in need of more attention or explanation.
Che oggetti e personaggi fittizi non esistano lo sanno tutti. Eppure, di personaggi e oggetti fit... more Che oggetti e personaggi fittizi non esistano lo sanno tutti. Eppure, di personaggi e oggetti fittizi parliamo, ci interessiamo e ci appassioniamo. Ma come possiamo farlo se non esistono? Da questa domanda trae origine il dibattito filosofico contemporaneo. Alcuni filosofi sostengono che, per poterne parlare, i personaggi fittizi devono pur esserci, altri invece che non abbiamo bisogno di ammettere la loro esistenza. Il libro, dopo aver presentato in modo articolato le diverse opzioni teoriche presenti nel dibattito attuale, propone di considerare personaggi e oggetti fittizi come prodotti culturali che dipendono – per la loro esistenza – dal coinvolgimento nella finzione da parte di chi vi si accosta.
Can one have an aesthetically valuable experience of fiction that takes an immoral perspective? S... more Can one have an aesthetically valuable experience of fiction that takes an immoral perspective? Some have argued that one can. However, some important objections have been raised against this idea. Two objections are: that the immorality involved is confined to fictional reality, and that the aesthetic value of immoral fiction is dictated by a pluralistic attitude that not everyone accepts. My aim is to respond to these challenges and to argue, on the basis of two examples, that even an unlimited immoral perspective can enhance a widespread aesthetic value.
Suppose that fictional objects are abstract objects dependent for their existence and their ident... more Suppose that fictional objects are abstract objects dependent for their existence and their identity on the creative intentions of their authors. Is an author who intends to create indeterminately identical fictional objects committed to incoherent created objects? My claim is that she is not so committed. I argue that indeterminate identity is an ambiguous notion, allowing for an incoherent interpretation and for at least three coherent ones; and I show that if an author of fiction applies coherent indeterminate identity when creating fictional objects, she succeeds in creating coherent objects, whereas she fails to create fictional objects when she tries to apply incoherent indeterminate identity in her creation. In so doing, I offer a reply to a challenge first raised by Everett against realist philosophers on fictional objects and more recently reproposed by Friedell, allowing for the creation of fictional objects along the lines proposed by Evnine.
A debate is ongoing among philosophers, theoretical physicists, psychologists, and neuroscientist... more A debate is ongoing among philosophers, theoretical physicists, psychologists, and neuroscientists regarding whether the experience of the passage of time is a veridical representation of the universe or merely an illusion. This contribution suggests that a better understanding of illusions and hallucinations can lead to a deeper examination of the role of time experience.
I propose a different account of fictional objects from the ones already present in the literatur... more I propose a different account of fictional objects from the ones already present in the literature. According to my account, fictional objects are culturally created abstract objects dependent for their existence on the pretence attitude adopted by a group of people towards a single fictional content. My work is divided into three parts: in the first one, I present how fictional objects come into existence according to my proposal; in the second part, I illustrate how the existence of fictional objects so conceived may be ontically indeterminate; in the last part, I consider what happens when vague existence and indeterminate identity are claimed within fictional texts.
It is usually taken for granted that a necessary condition for knowing that P is the truth of P. ... more It is usually taken for granted that a necessary condition for knowing that P is the truth of P. It may therefore be claimed that if we assume that we gain some kind of knowledge through fiction (let us call it fictional knowledge) of P * , then P * should be true-in at least a certain sense. My hypothesis is that this assumption grounds the different ways adopted by philosophers for attributing truth-conditions to fictional sentences. My claim in this work is that fictional sentences do not have truth-values and truth-conditions, but I want to maintain that we gain some kind of knowledge through fiction: to this aim, I will characterize the objective content of fictional sentences not in terms of truth-conditions (which are usually described by appealing to rules of the language or rules of interpretation of language independent of the actual users), but in dispositional terms and I will define a necessary condition for fictional knowledge accordingly.
A couple of doubts are raised concerning Hofweber's internalist view of our talk about properties... more A couple of doubts are raised concerning Hofweber's internalist view of our talk about properties. The first doubt relates to the argument used in support of the internalist view of talk about properties: I suspect that one of the premises of the argument is not granted and therefore that the argument's conclusion is undermined. My second doubt concerns a claimed consequence of Hofweber's internalist view, i.e. conceptual idealism. It seems to me that conceptual idealism is incompatible with the internalist view of talk about properties. The distinction between natural objects and artefactual ones has a long tradition in metaphysics. It presupposes that objects may be divided into two kinds: (i) natural kinds, i.e. objects marking true joints in nature and (ii) artefactual kinds, i.e. objects whose classification reflects the actions and interests of human beings. This distinction takes some notions of metaphysical priority as basic: natural kinds are generally considered more fundamental than artefactual ones. But what does "natural" mean? What does "fundamental" mean? According to Thomas Hofweber (2009 and 2016a), a certain way of doing metaphysics considers notions like "natural", "fundamental" or "ultimate" as distinctively metaphysical and primitive, where this means that they are different from the notions we use in our everyday conversations and cannot be defined in more simple terms. The specificity and indefinability of these notions raises the concern that metaphysical distinctions are made using terms taken for granted without a correct and precise understanding of them. It is due to this concern that Hofweber denounces what he calls "esoteric metaphysics"-a metaphysics that aims to answer questions involving primitively metaphysical terms-and proposes instead "egalitarian metaphysics"-a form of metaphysics that tries to answer questions accessible to all and without special terms for metaphysical insiders. 1 Within egalitarian metaphysics, "being natural" and "being artefactual" are on a par, they are predicates of natural language, used within science and common conversations. When we use these predicates, we may want to talk about properties, we may want to consider for example whether the property of being natural is more (or less) frequently instantiated than the property of being artefactual. And, according to Hofweber, when we talk about properties, whatever we say depends on us and our minds and not on how the objects in the world are in themselves. In order to understand this claim, it is useful first of all to consider how he thinks we should answer the question: "Are there properties?" and then how he argues for the internalist view of our talk about properties. My reconstruction of his argument is not neutral, my aim is to raise a couple of doubts on his account of our talk about properties. 1 The distinction between esoteric and egalitarian metaphysics is central to Hofweber (2009) and Hofweber (2016a, ch. 13).
McTaggart's Paradox has been considered a special case of Lewis's Problem of Temporary Intrinsics... more McTaggart's Paradox has been considered a special case of Lewis's Problem of Temporary Intrinsics (see Craig (1998), Rea (2003) and Rettler (2012)). I argue instead that the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics cannot simply be applied to the Problem of the passage of time and therefore that McTaggart's Paradox cannot be a special case of the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics. This observation is relevant in order to point out the difference between the change in objects or events over time (i.e. the subject of Lewis's Problem) and the change (or passage) of time (i.e. the subject of McTaggart's Paradox).
Williams (2012) recently proposed the Normative Silence model of Indeterminacy in order to accoun... more Williams (2012) recently proposed the Normative Silence model of Indeterminacy in order to account for a single phenomenon running through all cases of indeterminacy and to reach consensus on the correct epistemic attitude to adopt towards borderline cases of paradigmatically vague predicates. Williams’s Normative Silence model says there is no general normative rule governing God’s and humans’ belief attitudes towards indeterminacies. I claim instead that human rationality and philosophical inquiry require general normative rules leading our belief attitudes towards indeterminacies and that God’s belief attitudes are more difficult to define than Williams assumes.
Weatherson [8] argues that whoever accepts classical logic, standard mereology and the difference... more Weatherson [8] argues that whoever accepts classical logic, standard mereology and the difference between vague objects and any others, should conclude that there are no vague objects. Barnes and Williams [1] claim that a supporter of vague objects who accepts classical logic and standard mereology should recognize that the existence of vague objects implies indeterminate identity. Even though it is not clearly stated, they all seem to be committed to the assumption that reality is ultimately constituted by mereological atoms. This assumption is not granted by standard mereology which instead remains silent on whether reality is atomic or gunky; therefore, I contend that whoever maintains classical logic, standard mereology and the difference between vague objects and any others, is not forced to conclude with Weatherson that there are no vague objects; nor is she compelled to revise her point of view according to Barnes and Williams's proposal and to accept that the existence of vague objects implies indeterminate identity.
Frege's puzzle about identity sentences has long challenged many philosophers to find a solution ... more Frege's puzzle about identity sentences has long challenged many philosophers to find a solution to it but also led other philosophers to object that the evidential datum it is grounded on is false. The present work is an elaboration of this second kind of reaction: it explains why Frege's puzzle seems to resist the traditional objection, giving voice to different and more elaborated presentations of the evidential datum, faithful to the spirit but not to the letter of Frege's puzzle. The final outcome is negative, no satisfactory formulation of the evidential datum is found and Frege's puzzle is challenged until a better formulation of it is found.
We commonly recognize vague predicates when we do not find boundaries to their extension. Would a... more We commonly recognize vague predicates when we do not find boundaries to their extension. Would an omniscient being find it equally impossible to establish such boundaries? I will argue that if a semantic theory of vagueness like supervaluationism is correct, we cannot answer the question. The reason is that, under this assumption, cooperative behaviour is not possible for an omniscient being.
K. Akiba and A. Abasnezhad (eds), Vague Objects and Vague Identity, Springer 2014, 2014
A deep-rooted assumption concerning indiscriminability between visual appearances is the followin... more A deep-rooted assumption concerning indiscriminability between visual appearances is the following: two things are indiscriminable in look to an observer at a particular instant of time if and only if they look the same to that observer at that particular instant of time. I argue that this deep-rooted assumption may be false. The argument is in two steps. First, it is argued that indiscriminability between appearances may be non-transitive. Then it is argued that non-transitive indiscriminability between appearances is inconsistent with the deep-rooted assumption. It is therefore deduced that the deep-rooted assumption may be false.
Finally, I argue that if the deep-rooted assumption may be false, then
one of the premises of the phenomenal sorites paradox may be false too.And this leaves open the possibility that vague phenomenal predicates are coherent and that phenomenal properties are ontologically legitimate.
Vagueness manifests itself (among other things) in our inability to find boundaries to the extens... more Vagueness manifests itself (among other things) in our inability to find boundaries to the extension of vague predicates. A semantic theory of vagueness plans to justify this inability in terms of the vague semantic rules governing language and thought. According to a supporter of semantic theory, the inability to find such a boundary is not dependent on epistemic limits and an omniscient being like God would be equally unable.
I argue that, contrary to what has been assumed by both Williamson and Hawthorne, an omniscient being like God cannot be a cooperative evaluator of a semantic theory of vagueness.
The supporter of vague objects has been long challenged by the following ‘Argument from Identity’... more The supporter of vague objects has been long challenged by the following ‘Argument from Identity’: 1) if there are vague objects, then there is ontically indeterminate identity; 2) there is no ontically indeterminate identity; therefore, 3) there are no vague objects. Some supporters of vague objects have argued that 1) is false. Noonan (Analysis 68: 174–176, 2008) grants that 1) does not hold in general, but claims that ontically indeterminate identity is indeed implied by the assumption that there are vague objects of a certain special kind (i.e. vague objects*). One can therefore formulate a ‘New Argument from Identity’: 1′) if there are vague objects*, then there is ontically indeterminate identity; 2) there is no ontically indeterminate identity; therefore, 3′) there are no vague objects*. Noonan’s strategy is to argue that premiss 1′) is inescapable, and, as a consequence, that Evans’s alleged defence of 2) is a real challenge for any supporter of vague objects. I object that a supporter of vague objects who grants the validity of Evans’s argument allegedly in favour of 2) should reject premiss 1′). The threat of the New Argument from Identity is thus avoided.
Dean Zimmerman focuses on the debate between a serious-tenser B-theorist and an eternalist A-theo... more Dean Zimmerman focuses on the debate between a serious-tenser B-theorist and an eternalist A-theorist concerning truth and truth-conditions of tensed propositions. According to Zimmerman, the only way for the A-theorist to distinguish herself from the B-theorist is to argue for the non-relative (temporary monadic) truth of tensed propositions denying some aspects of the doctrine of temporal parts. I claim instead that the A-theorist can argue for the non-relative truth of tensed propositions adopting tensed truth-conditions incompatible with the B-theorist's hypotheses.
I propose to consider the paradox of temporal becoming using conceptual instruments derived from ... more I propose to consider the paradox of temporal becoming using conceptual instruments derived from Lewis’ definition of intrinsic change. I will show that there are two possible solutions to this paradox, that the two solutions are conceptually incompatible and that they both solve the paradox at the cost of doing without temporal becoming. The problem I want to raise is: how should we consider temporal becoming? I suppose that, given these premises, the most obvious answer is that temporal becoming is unreal: the paradox of temporal becoming is a demonstration of the impossibility of temporal becoming; there are, of course, two different and competing models of the nature of time (i.e. the two solutions to the paradox), but they both exclude the reality of temporal change. I propose a different answer: temporal becoming is conceptually inaccessible, the paradox concerns our conceptual abilities, not reality in itself and the two possible solutions to the paradox of time reveal two possible conceptual attitudes towards a conceptually unattainable reality.
Analytic philosophers define their philosophical approach as a method and not as a shared doctrin... more Analytic philosophers define their philosophical approach as a method and not as a shared doctrine amongst adepts. But what is the method? This is not an easy question and Timothy Williamson-one of the more brilliant and sharper of analytic philosophers of our times-offers his answer in this book. Let me say from the beginning that this is the answer of an analytic philosopher who does believe that the analytic method is the only one philosophy may have. This may be disappointing for philosophers with a more ecumenic approach, who allow for many methods to be equally valuable, and who would have appreciated a proposal for a restricted philosophical methodology. But this is not something that can be expected from a philosopher such as Williamson, who has been working as a leading philosopher in the analytic tradition all his life and whose intent is to point out the weakness and the strength of the analytic tools adopted so far and give advice on how to go forward. The observation that the analytic tradition is the only one considered in the book is just briefly mentioned in the bibliographical notes at the end of the book and not considered in need of more attention or explanation.
Che oggetti e personaggi fittizi non esistano lo sanno tutti. Eppure, di personaggi e oggetti fit... more Che oggetti e personaggi fittizi non esistano lo sanno tutti. Eppure, di personaggi e oggetti fittizi parliamo, ci interessiamo e ci appassioniamo. Ma come possiamo farlo se non esistono? Da questa domanda trae origine il dibattito filosofico contemporaneo. Alcuni filosofi sostengono che, per poterne parlare, i personaggi fittizi devono pur esserci, altri invece che non abbiamo bisogno di ammettere la loro esistenza. Il libro, dopo aver presentato in modo articolato le diverse opzioni teoriche presenti nel dibattito attuale, propone di considerare personaggi e oggetti fittizi come prodotti culturali che dipendono – per la loro esistenza – dal coinvolgimento nella finzione da parte di chi vi si accosta.
Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, 2014
Braun and Sider (2007) argued that a semantic theory of vagueness is not committed to calling int... more Braun and Sider (2007) argued that a semantic theory of vagueness is not committed to calling into question bivalence. They allegedly propose a semantic theory of vagueness which adopts bivalence and which accounts for our use of vague sentences. My main target is to point out the weakness of their theory. First of all, it is important to note that in order to grant bivalence they are ready to assume that most (if not all) natural language sentences do not express a proposition which is either true or false. As Braun and Sider are ready to admit, a consequence of this crucial assumption is that their theory itself is not true; even though they do not consider it a shortcoming, I will claim that, contrary to their contention, this is hard to swallow. Second, and more importantly, one of the main advantages they advocate for their theory is that it accounts for our use of vague sentences. As a matter of fact, the theory yields undesirable predictions as to how we react to vague sentences and I will argue that they do not overcome the difficulty.
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Finally, I argue that if the deep-rooted assumption may be false, then
one of the premises of the phenomenal sorites paradox may be false too.And this leaves open the possibility that vague phenomenal predicates are coherent and that phenomenal properties are ontologically legitimate.
I argue that, contrary to what has been assumed by both Williamson and Hawthorne, an omniscient being like God cannot be a cooperative evaluator of a semantic theory of vagueness.
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Finally, I argue that if the deep-rooted assumption may be false, then
one of the premises of the phenomenal sorites paradox may be false too.And this leaves open the possibility that vague phenomenal predicates are coherent and that phenomenal properties are ontologically legitimate.
I argue that, contrary to what has been assumed by both Williamson and Hawthorne, an omniscient being like God cannot be a cooperative evaluator of a semantic theory of vagueness.
My main target is to point out the weakness of their theory. First of all, it is important to note that in order to grant bivalence they are ready to assume that most (if not all) natural language sentences do not express a proposition which is either true or false. As Braun and Sider are ready to admit, a consequence of this crucial assumption is that their theory itself is not true; even though they do not consider it a shortcoming, I will claim that, contrary to their contention, this is hard to swallow. Second, and more importantly, one of the main advantages they advocate for their theory is that it accounts for our use of vague sentences. As a matter of fact, the theory yields undesirable predictions as to how we react to vague sentences and I will argue that they do not overcome the difficulty.