58吃瓜

Aesthetic assertion, aesthetic knowledge, and acquaintance inference Simple aesthetic sentences normally give rise to an acquaintance inference (AI), inferences that the speaker has first-hand knowledge of the item being evaluated. For example, if I say,聽鈥淪atantango is a beautiful novel鈥�, my utterance suggests that I have read the book. How to explain AI? In this talk,…

The Causal Argument Against Representationalism The central argument against perceptual representationalism in my recent聽The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience聽was that representational聽states聽aren鈥檛 causally efficacious in the way that perceptual states are. In this talk I shall explore some further issues related to this argument, including the general question of the causal significance of representational states, and the…

In Defence of Individual Rationality:   Common-sense (or folk) psychology holds that (generally) we do what we do for the reasons we have. This common-sense approach is embodied in claims like 鈥淚 went to the kitchen because I wanted a drink鈥� or 鈥淪he took a coat because she thought it might rain and hoped to…

Authority and Group Assertion We commonly attribute assertions to groups like companies and government institutions, and we want to hold them accountable for their assertions. Intuitively, we don’t attribute those assertions to the individuals performing them, but to the groups. The question is: what kind of speech act is group assertion and how does it…