In this paper we use an experimental approach to investigate how linguistic conventions can emerge in a society without explicit agreement. As a starting point we consider the signaling game ...introduced by Lewis (Convention 1969). We find that in experimental settings, small groups can quickly develop conventions of signal meaning in these games. We also investigate versions of the game where the theoretical literature indicates that meaning will be less likely to arise—when there are more than two states for actors to transfer meaning about and when some states are more likely than others. In these cases, we find that actors are less likely to arrive at strategies where signals have clear conventional meaning. We conclude with a proposal for extending the use of the methodology of experimental economics in experimental philosophy.
The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic account of the metaphysically important distinction between haecceitistic properties, such as being David Lewis or being acquainted with David Lewis, ...and qualitative properties, such as being red or being acquainted with a famous philosopher. I first argue that this distinction is hyperintensional, that is, that cointensional properties can differ in whether they are qualitative. Then I develop an analysis of the qualitative/haecceitistic distinction according to which haecceitistic properties are relational in a certain sense. I argue that this analysis can capture the hyperintensionality of the qualitative/haecceitistic distinction and is generally in accordance with the use of the notion of a qualitative property in philosophical debates.
TIME TRAVEL FOR ENDURANTISTS Valaris, Markos; Michael, Michaelis
American philosophical quarterly (Oxford),
10/2015, Letnik:
52, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Famously, David Lewis argued that we can avoid the apparent paradoxes of time travel by introducing a notion of personal time, which by and large follows the causal flow of the time traveler's life ...history. This paper argues that a related approach can be adapted for use by three-dimensionalists in response to Ted Sider's claim that three-dimensionalism is inconsistent with time travel. In contrast to Lewis (and others who follow him on this point), however, this paper argues that the order of events captured by so-called "personal time" should be thought of as causal, rather than temporal.
This is an essay on the understanding of disposition concepts, which exploits the Ramsey test semantics of conditionals for a refined conditional analysis of dispositions. I will show that this ...semantics allows for a more accurate account of disposition concepts than the standard semantics of conditionals by David Lewis. This includes dealing with the counterexamples to the conditional analysis, which are known as
finks
,
antidotes
, and
mimics
.
Start with an ordinary disposition ascription, like ‘the wire is
live
’ or ‘the glass is
fragile
’. Lewis (Philos Quart 47:143–158,
1997
) gives a canonical template for what he regards as the ...analysandum of such an ascription:
“Something
x
is disposed at time
t
to give response
r
to stimulus
s
”.
For example,
(*) the wire is disposed at noon to conduct electrical current when touched by a conductor.
What Lewis calls “
the simple conditional analysis
” gives putatively necessary and sufficient conditions for the analysandum in terms of a counterfactual:
“if
x
were to undergo stimulus
s
at time
t
,
x
would give response
r
”.
Call this the
counterfactual analysans
. For example:
(Would-conduct) If the wire were to be touched by a conductor at noon, the wire would conduct electricity.
So we have three things in play:
(1) the ordinary disposition ascription (e.g. ‘the wire is
live
’);
(2) the canonical template (e.g. *) that is supposed to formalize this disposition ascription; and
(3) the counterfactual analysans that is supposed to provided an analysis of the canonical template (e.g. Would-conduct).
Finkish dispositions
have been widely regarded as counterexamples to the adequacy of (3) as an analysis of (2). I will argue that they are not. They succeed, however, as counterexamples to the adequacy of (3) as an analysis of (1). That said, the classic cases are somewhat contrived. I will introduce the notion of a
minkish
disposition: a disposition that something has, even though it
might
not display it in response to the relevant stimulus. Cases of minkish dispositions are entirely familiar. They refute the adequacy of (3) both as an analysis of (2) and of (1). I will argue that they also refute Lewis’s own, more complicated counterfactual analysis of dispositions, and bring out an internal tension in his views.
Suppose that Paul, while looking at a tree, sees that that thing over there is a red bird. Paul is having what we may call a 'singular' perceptual experience. How should we characterise the ...representational content of his perceptual experience? I will sketch an original answer to this question, building on the internalist accounts propounded by Searle (1983. Intentionality. Cambridge University Press. Ch. 2) and Recanati (2007. Perspectival Thought. Oxford University Press. Ch. 17). Pace Searle, the content of Paul's experience is not a (general) proposition. Pace Recanati, whose account draws on Lewis's (1979. "Attitudes De Dicto and De Se." Philosophical Review 88 (4): 513-543) internalist view of de se attitudes, it is not a property of the perceiving subject. Instead, I submit, it is a property of the perceived object. The content is the property of being a red bird, which determines a set of centred worlds whose centre (an object taken at a time) is a red bird; the object (here, the bird) is part of the relevant situation of evaluation for the experience; and the experience is veridical only if the actual world centred on the object belongs to the set of centred worlds determined by that property. I will argue that this view retains the benefits of Searle's and Recanati's accounts while improving on them.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
17.
THE END OF MYSTERY Baron, Sam; Colyvan, Mark
American philosophical quarterly,
07/2019, Letnik:
56, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Tim travels back in time and tries to kill his grandfather before his father was born. Tim fails. But why? Lewis’s response was to cite “coincidences”: Tim is the unlucky subject of gun jammings, ...banana peels, sudden changes of heart, and so on. A number of challenges have been raised against Lewis’s response. The latest of these focuses on explanation. This paper diagnoses the source of this new disgruntlement and offers an alternative explanation for Tim’s failure, one that Lewis would not have liked. The explanation is an obvious one but controversial, so it is defended against all the objections that can be mustered.
David Lewis’s arguments against magical ersatzism are notoriously puzzling. Untangling different strands in those arguments is useful for bringing out what he thought was wrong with not just one ...style of theory about possible worlds, but with much of the contemporary metaphysics of abstract objects. After setting out what I take Lewis’s arguments to be and how best to resist them, I consider the application of those arguments to general theories of properties and relations. The constraints Lewis motivates turn out to yield an argument for concretism about possible individuals that is quite different from the better-known Lewisian arguments for that position. The discussion also touches on the puzzling question of whether things are the way they are because of the properties they have, or are the properties and relations the way they are because of the things that have them.
David Lewis famously endorsed Unrestricted Composition. His defense of such a controversial principle builds on the alleged innocence of mereology. This innocence defense has come under different ...attacks in the last decades. In this paper I pursue another line of defense, that stems from some early remarks by van Inwagen. I argue that Unrestricted Composition leads to a better metaphysics. In particular I provide new arguments for the following claims: Unrestricted Composition entails extensionality of composition, functionality of location and four-dimensionalism in the metaphysics of persistence. Its endorsement yields an impressively coherent and powerful metaphysical picture. This picture shows a universe that might not be innocent but it is certainly elegant.
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