Nenad Miščević

Armchair luck: Apriority, intellection and epistemic luck

The paper argues that there is such a thing as luck in acquisition of candidate apriori beliefs and knowledge, and that the possibility of luck in this “armchair” domain shows that definitions of believing by luck thatp offered in literature are inadequate, since they mostly rely on the possibility of it being the case that not-p. Whenp is necessary, such a definition should be supplemented by one pointing to variation in belief, not in the fact believed. Thus the paper suggests a focus upon the agent and her epistemic virtue in the account of epistemic luck in general.

Should reason be fragmented

Abstract Cognitive relativists‐pragmatists (Stich, Churchland) claim that human cognitive strategies, lacking a common goal, are in addition divergent to the point of incommensurability. They appeal to the study of reasoning heuristics for evidence on cognitive diversity and incorrigibility. It is here argued that no such evidence is offered by the research, which, on the contrary (1) presents heuristics as uniform across great variations; (2) offers advice for correcting and improving human reasoning; and (3) very often postulates a uniformity of core logical strategies, built into reasoning competence. Cognitive research thus supports a moderate rationalism rather than relativism‐pragmatism.

Logic, Indispensability and Aposteriority

The question addressed in the paper is the following: what gives justification of warrant for naive but logically correct reasoning, and for elementary logical procedures and beliefs? Appeals to unavoidability and indispensability as warrant providers have been extremely prominent in the revival of interest for a priori justification in the last decade, most prominently in the work of P. Boghossian, C. Wright and P. Horwich. The paper argues first that indispensability is incompatible with apriority, and that unavoidability also points in the direction of an empirically grounded naturalism. Second, it joins the current agreeing that they are among the best warrant-providers, and then concludes, against the current, that they make the full reflective justification of logic partly a posteriori. The main burden is on the incompatibility claim. The paper argues for it from the assumption that the use of unavoidable and indispensable means can derive its justification from projects only when the projects are themselves meaningful. However, we have an admissible ground for optimism: our most general cognitive project has been at least minimally successful, and therefore, it is meaningful, so we are justified in believing that it is, and the naive thinker is entitled to her logical reasoning. But this justification and entitlement are to a large extent a posteriori, so that the reflective justification of logical beliefs and the entitlement to naive logical reasoning have at least one strong a posteriori component.

Quining The Apriori

Empiricism abhors mysteries, and insists on the natural, causal origin of human knowledge, its experiential justification and its fallible and defeasible character. The classical notion of a priori knowledge, and the view that our intuitions provide such knowledge, assumes that some knowledge is, for its justification, independent from experience. Since this view sins against the demands listed, Quine was very much right in having rejected it. In this paper I want to defend a version of empiricism about justification that I take to capture the gist of Quine’s message. Some defense might be needed in view of the recent revival of interest in apriorism accompanied by criticism of the empiricist program (Bealer, 1992; Bonjour, 1992). Moreover, some prominent empiricists like E. Sober (in his paper (1993)) have come to question the fundamental tenets of Quine’s view. In these paper I wish to defend the tenability of empiricism against some of the charges, focusing upon Sober’s criticism, but mentioning others along the way. Sober discusses the universal truths of mathematics. There are four kinds of reasons why one should demand empirical test (warrant) for logical and mathematical beliefs:

IMAGINATION AND NECESSITY (THE CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE OF MEINONG’S VIEWS ON THE EVIDENT COGNITION)

This paper deals with Meinongs epistemology of alleged apriori cognition. I Some propositions of logic, arithmetic and geometry seem necessarily true; moreover, their necessary truth seems to be intuitively evident. Meinong was very much concerned with such propositions, and with their intuitive obviousness, and proposed a theory of evident cognition, encompassing (apparent) conceptual truths as well as logical and mathematical ones. He held them to be apriori in the traditional sense. He focuses upon those cases of evident cognition that appear linked to processes and judgments that we ordinarily consider to be perceptual, e.g. ones concerning colors, or geometrical configurations. We shall follow hirn in this, and point out those of his ideas we consider still relevant for contemporary epistemology. The main idea worth retaining in my opinion is the following: there is a seamless continuity leading from the level of (what is ordinarily taken to be) perception, through the exercise of imagination to judgments of universality and necessity. Let me call this idea the Descriptive unitarianist thesis. This factual conti-

Internalism and Intentionality

This paper is about two kinds of theories of intentionality. They will be called internalist and externalist theories. The terminology is well entrenched in epistemology, and most of the authors writing about the problem of intentionality seem to be aware that there are really two kinds of theories which can be distinguished in a way analogous to internalist/externalist distinction in epistemology. However, the issues are not always presented clearly, nor even discussed separately. It so happens that most authors which would be labeled ‘internalists’ by the classification also hold the doctrines that intentionality is irreducible, that functionalism is wrong and some others. They themselves present these doctrines as consequences of what here will be called the internalist stance. However, internalism is conceptually independent from these doctrines, and should be discussed as an issue in itself. I propose to do just this in the paper.