This paper is a reply to Kirk Ludwig's and Alexander Miller's comments on the first part of Donald Davidson's Triangulation Argument: A Philosophical Inquiry. It addresses concerns Ludwig expresses about the triangulation argument's success in establishing the social character of language and thought. It answers Miller's invitation to compare Davidson's non-reductionism with that of Crispin Wright, as well as the social aspect of Davidson's view with the social aspect of Saul Kripke's. And it addresses Miller's worries concerning my claims about the normativity of meaning.

The epistemology of disagreement has developed around a highly idealized notion of epistemic peers. The analysis of examples in the literature has somewhat entrenched this idealization, when using cases of extant philosophical disputes between named interlocutors. These examples make it hard to emphasize the ordinary ways in which discussants, as disciplinary colleagues, may be wrong. Overlooking these possibilities is probably made easier by widespread attitudes in philosophy about the importance of genius or raw intelligence in doing philosophy. The use of such internal examples needlessly limits consideration of the full range of epistemically relevant features of disagreements.

In a series of articles, Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen and Nick Zangwill argue that, since propositional attitude (PA) ascription judgements do not behave like normative judgements in being subject to a priori normative supervenience and the Because Constraint, PAs cannot be constitutively normative.1 I argue that, for a specific version of normativism, according to which PAs are normative commitments, these arguments fail. To this end, I argue that commitments and obligations should be distinguished. Then, I show that the intuitions allegedly governing all normative judgements do not even purport to hold for commitment-attributing judgements.

Kant claims that we demand the agreement of others when making judgements of taste. I argue that this claim is part of an explanation of how the phenomenology of familiar aesthetic judgements supports his contention that judgements of taste are universal. Kant's aesthetic theory is plausible only if we reject the widespread contention that this demand is normative. I offer a non-normative reading of Kantian judgements of taste based on a close reading of the Analytic and Deduction, then argue against the three prominent normative interpretations, which force us to attribute to Kant a position that he did not accept.

I argue that Thomas Aquinas maintains the view that (created) powers are accidental to their bearers not because powers pertain to bearers with limited essences, but because their bearers have limited actual being. Power tracks not only the essence of something but also its actual existence. Things have powers that are causally relevant when these things exist, that is, the nature of a power is determined by a thing’s essence, but the actual being of the thing of that essence accounts for the limitations of this power and for the extent to which a power can have causal effects.

L'article propose une interprétation des leçons sur la Philosophie de l'histoire de Hegel afin de comprendre comment le philosophe en arrive à une conception historique des normes. En montrant l'importance de la notion de problème (Aufgabe) dans sa pensée, nous soutenons que c'est parce que les humains sont confrontés à des situations historiques problématiques qu'ils en arrivent à inventer des normes et à les transformer dans l'histoire. Cette perspective permet de réhabiliter la philosophie hégélienne de l'histoire, dans le sillage des actuelles lectures non métaphysiques de l'hégélianisme.

I argue against Harbin's claim that aesthetic judgements, for Kant, are not normative. By focusing on the systematic nature of Kant's Critical philosophy, I show that aesthetic judgements, like judgements in the theoretical and practical domains, must be normative, though such judgements display a distinct kind of normativity, which is expressed in their subjectivity, indeterminacy, and affectivity.

In response to Paul Hurley, I argue that Donald Davidson's triangulation argument can be applied to normative beliefs only if such beliefs are answerable to properties that are at once normative and causal. The argument thus commits Davidson to a non-reductive and strikingly non-revisionary form of naturalism. In response to Kirk Ludwig, I argue that Davidson had good reason to abandon Humean accounts of pro-attitudes because he had good reason to welcome the non-reductive and non-revisionary form of naturalism that comes into view once the triangulation argument is applied to normative beliefs.

Musical works are both multiple — they have a plurality of instances — and audible — they can be heard by listening to their instances. Two prominent approaches to musical ontology designed to explain these features of musical works are the type-token model and the continuant-stage model. Julian Dodd has argued that the type-token model has an advantage over the continuant-stage model because it can offer a direct explanation of the audibility of musical works in terms of their ontological category. In this paper, I defend the continuant-stage model against Dodd's argument by invoking a work-unifying continuity relation.

A formulational debate is a debate over whether certain definitions of scientific realism and antirealism are useful. By contrast, an epistemological debate is a debate over whether we have sufficient evidence for scientific realism and antirealism, defined in a certain manner. I argue that Hilary Putnam's definitions of scientific realism and antirealism are more useful than Bas van Fraassen's definitions of scientific realism and constructive empiricism because Putnam's definitions can generate both formulational and epistemological debates, whereas van Fraassen's can generate only formulational debates.

I respond to Dunn's claim that aesthetic judgements must be normative for Kant by (I) clarifying my position: it is not the case that on my account the strength of the feeling of pleasure implies that others should agree with my judgement; instead, the disinterestedness of the feeling is the basis for agreement, (II) arguing against the claim that Kant's broader system requires normative judgements of taste, and (III) arguing against the suggestion that any operation of a faculty in accordance with a principle is normative.

La question «Hegel est-il pragmatiste?» a fait l'objet de nombreux débats chez les spécialistes de la philosophie hégélienne et du pragmatisme. Dans cet article, je me propose de clarifier les termes du problème et d’évaluer les forces et les faiblesses de deux manières de répondre à cette question : la première consiste à repérer des thèmes pragmatistes dans la pensée hégélienne, la seconde consiste à identifier un critère minimal et négatif de rapprochement entre l'hégélianisme et le pragmatisme. À la lumière de cet examen critique, il apparaît que toute approche générale de cette question semble vouée à l’échec.

Dans cet article, nous revenons sur la critique tout à fait originale de l'utilitarisme que Philippa Foot propose dans son œuvre de philosophie morale. Nous montrerons que la confrontation avec cette théorie éthique normative fut l'une des causes qui conduisit la philosophe britannique à reprendre à nouveaux frais la notion de rationalité pratique dans la dernière partie de son œuvre, notamment lors de la discussion qu'elle engage avec l'utilitarisme sur le fondement de l'obligation des promesses dans son livre de 2001, Le Bien naturel.

According to a popular view in contemporary epistemology, a belief is justified if, and only if, it amounts to knowledge. Upholders of this view also hold that knowledge is the fundamental norm governing belief and that conforming to this norm is both necessary and sufficient for justification. I argue against the claim that mere norm conformity is sufficient for justification. Rather, justification requires norm conformity for sufficient undefeated reasons. An important consequence is the rejection of the claim that conformity to the norm of belief is necessary and sufficient for epistemic justification. I illustrate some interesting consequences of this result.

Cet article est une défense de la position exposée par Nelson Goodman dans Langages de l'art. Goodman affirme que les images fonctionnent dans des systèmes symboliques denses. La différence entre texte et image ne se situe pas là où nous l'aurions spontanément cherchée : dans l'expérience perceptuelle que nous avons des images. Une telle théorie de la dépiction peut sembler iconoclaste, voire complètement fausse, et ce, parce que nous y voyons à tort une explication de la représentation picturale. Elle offre cependant, rapportée à d'autres intuitions philosophiques qui essaiment ailleurs dans l’œuvre de Goodman, une meilleure compréhension du fonctionnement des images.

Dans cet article, nous soutenons que Habermas réduit, dans l'essai critique sur Brandom inclus dans Vérité et justification (2001), la communication à sa forme étroitement dialogique et, ce faisant, tend à ignorer que le processus discursif est avant tout, pour Brandom, le produit d'une coordination partagée de différentes perspectives individuelles contribuant à faire avancer ce jeu de production et de demande de raisons. Nous proposons, d'une part, de procéder à une analyse critique de la position de Habermas, et d'autre part, de rendre justice à Brandom en soulignant la spécificité du processus communicatif discursif.

In the spirit of modal scepticism, Peter Hawke offers a modal epistemology, the safe explanation theory (SET), which takes the form of modal empiricism. By employing SET, he tries to defend enumerative induction (EI): it is reasonable to believe that any X is F on the basis of a sufficiently large sample in which any X is F. In this paper, I argue that Hawke’s defence fails. Moreover, I point out a problem with SET, which results in this failure: SET is too strict to account for some possibility claims that we are entitled to believe.

Fichte’s Jena writings sought to combine the apparently conflicting requirements of settling philosophy on scientific grounds and of respecting its character as a self-determined vocation. In reconciling these tasks, he understood himself to be faced at once with the meta-philosophical one of motivating the questions he addressed, the pedagogical one of adequately communicating his position, and the polemical one of accounting for the incomprehension of his adversaries. I show how these layers constitute Fichte’s response to the larger problem of specifying the relation between the rote ‘letter’ of a philosophical doctrine and the intersubjective ‘spirit’ of its communicability.

This paper defends the doctrine of Unrestricted Exportation (UE) against Saul Kripke’s attack on it. According to UE, the exportation step from the de dicto belief report, S believes that α is F, together with the premise that α exists, to the de re report, S believes of α that it is F, is valid. By presenting an alleged counterexample, Kripke tries to show that UE has much more implausible consequences than its advocates would accept. By going through the details of Kripke’s scenario, I argue that UE does not commit us to the consequences Kripke associates with it.