‘There can never be surprises in logic’, said Wittgenstein (1921–1922: 6.1251), somewhat surprisingly. But philosophy is full of surprises, including the periodic exhuming of positions largely believed to have been humed (as Dennett’s philosophical lexicon has it). For decades David Lewis, that arch Humean, reigned as exhumer-in-chief. But times have changed and the title must now go to Timothy Williamson. Theories long consigned to the flames have been doused, roused, and rehoused within a formidable philosophical methodology. It holds that often the simple theory will be the correct one, its seeming counterexamples being the results of misfiring cognitive heuristics. Explain these and we explain away the counterexamples. That idea forms the heart of…
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