Argumenta – Journal of Analytic Philosophy

Analyses of action-perception matching mechanisms, such as the Mirror Neuron System (MNS), have been prominent in evolutionary accounts of human cognition. Some scholars have interpreted data on the MNS to suggest that the human capacity to acquire and transmit cultural information is a learned product of cultural evolution (the Culture not Biology Account of cultural learning). Others have interpreted results related to the MNS to suggest that cultural learning in humans result from both cultural and biological evolution (the Culture per biology Account of cultural learning). In this paper, we…

In this paper I reconstruct Spencer (2014)’s argument supporting the conclusion that ‘race’, in its current U.S. meaning, is a rigidly designating proper name for a biologically real entity, specifically for the partition at the K = 5 level of human population structure. Then, I object to the argument by contesting three distinct key assertions in it. First, I contest the assumption that if a term t has a logically inconsistent set of identifying conditions but a robust extension, then it is appropriate to identify the meaning of t as…

A hypothetical syllogism with three conditional propositions (hereinafter HSc) is considered invalid according to the ordinary discourse counterexamples in the existing literature. In this paper, I argue that such counterexamples cannot verify the validity of HSc. The conditional propositions in these arguments are questionable, whether that is indicative or counterfactual HSc. The arguments are considered invalid not because HSc is invalid by itself, but because there is a mismatch between the antecedent of one premise and the consequent of another premise (i.e. a violation of the common part of both…

The debate on internalism/externalism both in semantics and in epistemology concerns the core relations between the mind and the world. I will use this dichotomy to assess whether and how optimal coordination can be worked out between the different parts of Quine’s philosophy: semantics and epistemology in his earlier development. Since Quine has emphasized that his examination of translation is epistemological and since his epistemological project is an internalist one, it should be logical to assume that his semantics proceeded in the same way. But in Word and Object it…

Fictional characters may raise serious troubles about their identity even within one and the same story. Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire, for instance, depicts a world pretty much like ours, in which there seems to be no indeterminate identity, yet leaves it open whether the Shade character is the same as the Kinbote character. On the contrary, in Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, there seems to be two characters, Kumiko and the Woman in the hotel room, that are indeterminately identical. Worse still, there are also cases of inconsistent identity: in…

This article investigates Katalyn Farkas’s notion of privileged access as a criterion to distinguish the mental from the physical. Farkas argues that a state is mental if and only if its subject has a special kind of awareness of it, that is, if it has a unique subjective dimension. I compare this notion with Rorty’s view that the mental can be characterized by incorrigibility, that is, being immune to third-person errors. I claim that the two notions are related but both have difficulties in accounting for the variety and intricacy…

This paper explores the structural parallels between Gettier’s challenge to the justified true belief account of knowledge and Chisholm’s problem of wayward causal chains in action theory. Despite their distinct domains, both issues highlight the necessity of an adequate connection between explanation, justification, and outcome. Based on this analysis, this paper argues that the distinction between theoretical and practical rationality is less rigid than traditionally assumed. The paper further contends that, while a solution to the issue of wayward causal chains can at least be hypothesized, previous analyses have primarily…

This paper presents a conceptual analysis of Wittgenstein’s use of the notions of habit and custom. References to habit and custom abound in Wittgenstein’s writings already from the 1930s, but no particular focus has been placed on his actual use of these notions. The aim of the paper is to provide a preliminary conceptual tool useful for developing a fruitful engagement between Wittgenstein’s “post-tractarian” philosophy and contributions to the philosophy of habit. To do this, I will first trace relevant occurrences in Wittgenstein’s writings. Secondly, I will map the use…

Wittgenstein famously asked: What is left when we subtract the fact that my arm rises from the fact that I raise it? Any adequate theory of action must clarify the difference between actions of this kind and mere bodily movements. Plausible answers since the 1950s have been broadly causal. The readiest answer—that causation by an intention is the missing element—is oversimple. Intentionality, however, may be crucial even if intentions alone cannot provide an answer. Elizabeth Anscombe apparently favored reasons for acting; but reasons in the abstract, say as true propositions,…