Gilbert Harman

THE INTRINSIC QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE

There are three familiar and related arguments against psychophysical functionalism and the computer model of the mind. The first is that we are directly aware of intrinsic features of our experience and argues that there is no way to account for this awareness in a functional view. The second claims that a person blind from birth can know all about the functional role of visual experience without knowing what it is like to see something red. The third claims that functionalism cannot account for the possibility of an inverted spectrum. All three arguments can be defused by distinguishing properties of the object of experience from properties of the experience of an object.

Doubts About Conceptual Analysis

In these brief remarks, I want to indicate why conceptual analyses by philosophers are unlikely to deliver those sorts of a priori connections that Jackson argues areneeded for armchair metaphysics (Jackson, ‘Armchair Metaphysics’, this volume).

A Problem for Relative Information Minimizers, Continued

I. In a previous note (van Fraassen [I98I]) one of us presented a problem for the relative information rule in probability kinematics. This sequel will be made self-contained by presenting both the rule (INFOMIN) and the problem (Judy Benjamin problem) again. We will argue that the problem does not admit of a unique solution. Comparing three specific such solutions by two further criteria (quasi-empirical tests of rule performance), we find that INFOMIN is not the best on either count.

An introduction to ‘translation and meaning’ chapter two ofWord and Object

In this paper I attempt to provide a brief introduction to the thesis of the indeterminacy of radical translation, as this is presented in Chapter Two of Quine’s Word and Object. I begin by explaining what the thesis is, as I conceive it. Then I consider how one might defend the thesis. Finally I examine several aspects of Quine’s discussion of the thesis.

What is Moral Relativism

Of the various views that have been called ‘moral relativism,’ there are three plausible versions, which I will label ‘normative moral relativism,’ ‘moral judgment relativism,’ and ‘meta-ethical relativism.’ The first of these views is a thesis about moral agents; the second, a thesis about the form of meaning of moral judgments; the third, a thesis about the truth conditions or justification of moral judgments. Normative moral relativism is the view roughly that different people, as agents, can be subject to different ultimate moral demands. Moral judgment relativism holds that moral judgments make implicit reference to the speaker or some other person or to some group or to one or another set of moral standards, etc. Meta-ethical relativism says that conflicting moral judgments about a particular case can both be right.

Rationality in Agreement: A Commentary on Gauthier's Morals by Agreement 1

Gauthiers title is potentially misleading. The phrase “morals by agreement” suggests a social contract theory of morality according to which basic moral principles arise out of an actual or hypothetical agreement. John Rawls defends a hypothetical agreement version, arguing that the basic principles of justice are those that would be agreed to in an initial position of fair equality. I myself defend an actual agreement version, arguing that the moral principles that apply to a person derive from implicit conventions the person has accepted in dealing with other people. Gauthiers view is different from either of these sorts of contract theory. Instead, he holds that certain basic principles of impartiality are prior to actual agreements.

Justice and Moral Bargaining

INTRODUCTION In my view, justice is entirely conventional; indeed, all of morality consists in conventions that are the result of continual tacit bargaining and adjustment. This is not to say social arrangements are just whenever they are in accordance with the principles of justice accepted in that society. We can use our own principles of justice in judging the institutions of another society, and we can appeal to some principles we accept in order to criticize other principles we accept. To use David Humes model of the relevant sort of convention, two people rowing a boat each continually adjusts his or her rate of rowing to the other so that they come to row at the same rate, a rate that is normally somewhere between the rate at which each would prefer to row. In the same way the basic principles of justice accepted by people of different powers and resources are the result of a continually changing compromise affecting such things as the relative importance attached to helping others as compared with the importance attached to not harming others. Humes rowers provide an example of a “convention” that is normally completely tacit. There are other models in which the bargaining can be more explicit, for example when a seller comes to set prices that are acceptable to customers, when employers reach understandings with employees concerning wages, or when political groups influence legislation. I want eventually to consider the implications for moral reasoning and argument of the thesis that principles of justice are entirely the result of implicit bargaining and convention of this sort.

Generative Grammars Without Transformation Rules

A phrase-structure grammar has been written which generates exactly the set of sentences generated by a fairly large transformational grammar written by Noam Chomsky.2 The phrase structure version of Chomsky’s grammar is included in the appendis. It is written in an abbreviated notation which is explained below.

Reflections on Knowledge and its Limits

Williamsons Knowledge and its Limitsl is the most important philosophical discussion of knowledge in many years. It sets the agenda for epistemology for the next decade and beyond.

Phenomenal fallacies and conflations

A “fallacy” is something like the sense-datum fallacy, involving a logically invalid argument. A “conflation” is something like Blocks conflation of the (alleged) raw feel of an experience with what it is like to have the experience. Trivially, a self is conscious of something only if it accesses it. Substantive issues concern the nature of the conscious self and the nature of access.