Evolutionary psychology is one of many biologically informed approaches to the study of human behavior. Along with cognitive psychologists, evolutionary psychologists propose that much, if not all, of our behavior can be explained by appeal to internal psychological mechanisms. What distinguishes evolutionary psychologists from many cognitive psychologists is the proposal that the relevant internal mechanisms are adaptations—products of natural selection—that helped our ancestors get around the world, survive and reproduce. To understand the central claims of evolutionary psychology we require an understanding of some key concepts in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. Philosophers are interested in evolutionary psychology for a number of reasons. For philosophers of science —mostly philosophers of biology—evolutionary psychology provides a critical target. There is a broad consensus among philosophers of science that evolutionary psychology is a deeply flawed enterprise. For philosophers of mind and cognitive science evolutionary psychology has been a source of empirical hypotheses about cognitive architecture and specific components of that architecture. Philosophers of mind are also critical of evolutionary psychology but their criticisms are not as all-encompassing as those presented by philosophers of biology. Evolutionary psychology is also invoked by philosophers interested in moral psychology both as a source of empirical hypotheses and as a critical target.

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

1. Introducing the Puzzle 2. Contextualism and the Puzzle 3. Invariantist Treatments 4. Sensitive Moderate Invariantism Bibliography

Knowledge and lotteries

Dans la cadre du debat sur la perception du monde exterieur qui oppose le scepticisme et le faillibilisme, l'A. defend une position dogmatique inspiree de l'epistemologie antisceptique de G. E. Moore. Adoptant un modele propositionnel de l'experience, l'A. developpe une approche positive de la justification de la perception.

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The Skeptic and the Dogmatist

PRUF—an acronym for Possibilistic Relational Universal Fuzzy—is a meaning representation language for natural languages which departs from the conventional approaches to the theory of meaning in several important respects. First, a basic assumption underlying PRUF is that the imprecision that is intrinsic in natural languages is, for the most part, possibilistic rather than probabilistic in nature. Thus, a proposition such as “Richard is tall” translates in PRUF into a possibility distribution of the variable Height (Richard), which associates with each value of the variable a number in the interval [0,11 representing the possibility that Height (Richard) could assume the value in question. More generally, a proposition, p , translates into a procedure, P, which returns a possibility distribution, Π p , with P and Π p representing, respectively, the meaning of p and the information conveyed by p . In this sense, the concept of a possibility distribution replaces that of truth as a foundation for the representation of meaning in natural languages. Second, the logic underlying PRUF is not a two-valued or multivalued logic, but a fuzzy logic, FL, in which the truth-values are linguistic, that is, are of the form true, not true, very true, more or less true, not very true , etc., with each such truth-value representing a fuzzy subset of the unit interval. The truth-value of a proposition is defined as its compatibility with a reference proposition, so that given two propositions p and r, one can compute the truth of p relative to r . Third, the quantifiers in PRUF—like the truth-values—are allowed to be linguistic, i.e. may be expressed as most, many, few, some, not very many, almost all, etc. Based on the concept of the cardinality of a fuzzy set, such quantifiers are given a concrete interpretation which makes it possible to translate into PRUF propositions exemplified by “Many tall men are much taller than most men,” “All tall women are blonde is not very true,” etc. The translation rules in PRUF are of four basic types: Type I—pertaining to modification; Type II—pertaining to composition; Type III—pertaining to quantification; and Type IV—pertaining to qualification and, in particular, to truth qualification, probability qualification and possibility qualification. The concepts of semantic equivalence and semantic entailment in PRUF provide a basis for question-answering and inference from fuzzy premises. In addition to serving as a foundation for approximate reasoning, PRUF may be employed as a language for the representation of imprecise knowledge and as a means of precisiation of fuzzy propositions expressed in a natural language.

PRUF—a meaning representation language for natural languages

In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the space of possible analyses of the phenomenon of quantifier domain restriction, together with a set of considerations which militate against all but our own proposal. Among the many accounts we consider and reject are the 'explicit' approach to quantifier domain restric- tion discussed, for example, by Stephen Neale, and the pragmatic approach to quantifier domain restriction proposed by Kent Bach. Our hope is that the exhaustive discussion of this special case of context-dependence will provide guidelines for how to decide, for an arbitrary case of context-dependent discourse, whether it should be treated syn- tactically, semantically, or pragmatically.

On Quantifier Domain Restriction

Inflating deflationism minimal truth, internal realism and superassertibility convergence and cognitive command appendix - the euthyphro contrast cognitive command and the theoreticity of observation realism and the best explanation of belief quietism appendix - on an argument against the coherence of minimalism about meaning.

Truth and Objectivity

Truth and Objectivity.

My life consists in my being content to accept many things



(Wittgenstein On Certainty x344)



Two kinds of epistemological sceptical paradox are reviewed and a shared assumption, that warrant to accept a proposition has to be the same thing as having evidence for its truth, is noted ‘Entitlement’, as used here, denotes a kind of rational warrant that counter-exemplies that identication The paper pursues the thought that there are various kinds of entitlement and explores the possibility that the sceptical paradoxes might receive a uniform solution if entitlement can be made to reach sufficiently far Three kinds of entitlement are characterised and given prima facie support, and a fourth is canvassed Certain foreseeable limitations of the suggested anti-sceptical strategy are noted The discussion is grounded, overall, in a conception of the sceptical paradoxes not as directly challenging our having any warrant for large classes of our beliefs but as crises of intellectual conscience for one who wants to claim that we do

Warrant for nothing (and foundations for free)

Frege's conception of numbers as objects

Preface.Notes on Contributors.Part I: Meaning and Theories of Meaning:1. Meaning and Truth Conditions: From Frege's Grand Design to Davidson's: David Wiggins (University of Oxford).2. Meaning, Use, Verification: John Skorupski (University of St Andrews).3. Intention and Convention: Anita Avramides (St Hilda's College, University of Oxford).4. Pragmatics: Charles Travis (University of Stirling).5. A Guide to Naturalising Semantics: Charles Travis (University of Stirling).6. Meaning and Privacy: Edward Craig (University of Cambridge).7. Tacit Knowledge: Alexander Miller (University of Michigan).8. Radical Interpretation: Jane Heal (University of Cambridge).9. Propositional Attitudes: Mark Richard (Tufts University).10. Holism: Christopher Peacocke (University of Oxford).11. Metaphor: Richard Moran (Harvard University).Part II: Language, Truth and Reality:12. Realism and its Oppositions: Bob Hale (University of Glasgow).13. Theories of Truth: Ralph C. S. Walker (Magdalen College, University of Oxford).14. Analyticity: Paul Artin Boghossian (New York University).15. Rule-following, Objectivity and Meaning: Bob Hale (University of Oxford).16. The Interdeterminacy of Translation: Crispin Wright (University of St. Andrews).17. Putnam's Model-theoretical Argument against Metaphysical Realism: Bob Hale and Crispin Wright (University of St. Andrews).18. Sorites: R. M. Sainsbury and Timothy Williamson (University of Edinburgh).Part III: Reference, Identity and Necessity:19. Modality: Bob Hale (University of Oxford).20. Essentialism: Graeme Forbes (Tulane University).21. Reference and Necessity: Robert Stalnaker (MIT).22. Names and Rigid Designation: Jason Stanley (Cornell University).23. Indexicals and Demonstratives: John Perry (Stanford University).24. Objects and Criteria of Identity: E. J. Lowe (University of Durham).25. Relative Identity: Harold Noonan (University of Birmingham).Glossary.Index.

Crispin Wright

Papers

Truth and Objectivity

Truth and Objectivity.

Warrant for nothing (and foundations for free)

Frege's conception of numbers as objects

A companion to the philosophy of language