Singling Out Properties

This paper argues for an overlooked dimension in the metaphysical microstructure of knowledge. The connection between knowledge and truth is even deeper than generally acknowledged. Knowledge, I argue, supervenes not only on a specific (namely modal) relation between the proposition p’s truth and an agent’s belief that p, but also on specific relations between the proposition’s truthmaker and the belief’s justification-maker. S knows that p only if the states of affairs referred to by S’s reasons for believing that p are identical with, causally related to, or grounded in the states of affairs that make p true.

Philosophical Topics, 2021

It is a platitude that when we reason, we often take things for granted, sometimes even justifiably so. The chemist might reason from the fact that a substance turns litmus paper red to that substance being an acid. In so doing, they take for granted, reasonably enough, that this test for acidity is valid. Although it is a platitude that we often take things for granted when we reason—whether justifiably or not—one might think that we do not have to. In fact, it is a natural expectation that were we not pressed by time, lack of energy or focus, we could always in principle make explicit in the form of premises every single presupposition we make in the course of our reasoning. In other words, it is natural to expect it to be true that presuppositionless reasoning is possible. In this essay, I argue that it is false: presuppositionless reasoning is impossible. Indeed, I think this is one of the lessons of a long-standing paradox about inference and reasoning known as Lewis Carroll’s (1985) regress of the premises. Many philosophers agree that Carroll’s regress teaches us something foundational about reasoning. I part ways about what it is that it teaches us. What it teaches us is that the structure of reasoning is constitutively presuppositional.

The Routledge Handbook of Propositions (2023), ed. C. Tillman and A. R. Murray.

holds that sentences are metaphysically and semantically basic, and that reference is a theoretical notion introduced to model what goes on when speakers understand sentences. 1 This can be thought of as giving expression to, or teasing out an implication of, the Fregean context principle, as filtered through the later Wittgenstein. 2 Words have meaning only in the context of a sentence, the sentence is the fundamental unit of linguistic understanding, and the reference relation is adduced by the semanticist to model linguistic understanding. If reference is an essentially theoretical notion, that in turn suggests that ontology is conceptually derivative. In the beginning was the sentence, and the rest is just theoretical superstructure, or, if you prefer, substructure. Objects drop out of sentences as a theoretical posit. The idea that, to put it roughly, ontology should simply fall out of language has also been embraced by Bob Hale and Crispin Wright as part of a wider neo-Fregean and neo-logicist program. Starting from the context principle, they argue that we should conceive of ontology as syntax-driven. 3 In a classic discussion, Wright argued that the Fregean context principle supports a 'syntactic priority thesis', which is 'the thesis that the notion of an object is posterior in the order of explanation to that of a singular term; that no better general explanation of the notion of an object can be given than in terms of the notions of singular term and reference; and that the truth of appropriate sentential contexts containing what is, by syntactic criteria, a singular term is sufficient to take care, so to speak, of its reference'; further, 'there can be no philosophical science of ontology, no well-founded attempt to see past our categories of expression and glimpse the way in which the world is truly furnished' (1983, pp. 24, 52). Wright here restricts the scope of his claim to singular terms; elsewhere he limits it to terms that introduce 'pure abstract objects' (1992, pp. 181-2). But more recently Hale and Wright have affirmed that the principle applies to predicates too (2009, pp. 198-200, 207). Here is a representative statement from Hale: If entities belonging to a certain ontological category just are what expressions of a certain kind stand for, then we can argue for the existence of entities of that kind by arguing that there are true statements involving expressions of the relevant kind. If, for example, there are true statements incorporating expressions functioning as singular terms, then there are objects of some corresponding kind. If the singular terms are such that, if they have reference at all, they refer to numbers, there are numbers. If there are true statements involving expressions functioning as predicates, then there are properties of some corresponding kind.

2007

Within the philosophy of language, names and descriptions are traditionally taken to represent different paradigms of reference. Many philosophers draw a sharp contrast between the way speakers use names to talk about individuals and the way they use definite descriptions to do so. A proper name is used to pick out one specific individual. A definite description, on the other hand, provides a general formula for picking out distinct individuals in different situations.

It is widely accepted that knowledge is factive, but two different understandings of "factivity" should be distinguished, namely, the implication version and the presupposition version. While the former only takes the truth of P as a necessary requirement for "S knows that P," the latter considers it also necessary for "S does not know that P." In this paper, I argue against presupposition and defend implication. More specifically, I argue against Wang and Tai's defense of the presupposition version as presented in a recent paper and propose a pragmatic response to the "persistence problem" of implication. In other words, my positive proposal is an account of implication plus pragmatic implicature. To conclude, I use my version to analyze Wang and Tai's distinction between inner skepticism and outer skepticism. My conclusion is that, after abandoning presupposition, we can identify two types of intermediate skepticism between Wang and Tai's inner and outer skepticism.