ABSTRACT. The indexical cognitive dynamics problem (cf. Kaplan (1989), Evans (1981), Perry (1996), Prosser (2005), Verdejo (2020), Bozickovic (2021)) comprises distinct but connected issues concerning intrapersonal and intertemporal identity of contents and beliefs. In my paper I would like to take a critical look at one of the reactions to the problem set forth in the literature. The proposal in question, developed by João Branquinho (Branquinho (2008)), follows a general approach suggested in Evans’ writings and links the indexical belief retention ability to cognitive abilities to identify objects across changing circumstances. More specifically, Branquinho suggests that one’s belief (or other attitude) counts as a retention of another if and only if the two are related to singular propositions that have the same subject-matter and the two propositions in question are presented (to the person in question and at two particular times) under two causally related modes of presentations. Additionally, the causal relation in question might be either manifested as an object-tracking ability or through a memory link. So, for instance, my belief that yesterday was fine (held on d+1) is a retention of my belief that today is fine (held on d) in the case in which the singular propositional contents of the beliefs have the same subject matter and are presented under two modes of presentations m and m+1 such that m causes m+1 through a memory link. I shall argue that the account incorrectly predicts that a person who held a certain belief at t but lost any relevant memory traces (or tracking abilities) cannot retain a belief (with the same subject matter) at a later time t’. I shall explain the inadequacy of the view by highlighting the fact that it is not the causal connection that grounds the belief retention cases but an ability to entertain something I call stipulative contextual thoughts: thoughts about properties of circumstances in which a particulartoken of an intentional state occurs.

References

Bozickovic, Vojislav (2021). The Indexical Point of View: On Cognitive Significance and Cognitive Dynamics. New York and London: Routledge. Branquinho, João (2008). On the persistence and re-expression of indexical belief. Manuscrito 31 (2). Evans, Gareth (1981). Understanding Demonstratives. In Herman Parret & Jacques Bouveresse (eds.), Meaning and understanding. New York: W. de Gruyter. pp. 280-303. Kaplan, David (1989). Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals. In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes From Kaplan. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563. Perry, John (1996). Rip Van Winkle and other characters. European Review of Philosophy 2:13-39. Prosser, Simon (2005). Cognitive dynamics and indexicals. Mind and Language 20 (4):369–391. Verdejo, Victor M. (2020). Rip Van Winkle and the Retention of 'Today'-Belief: A Puzzle. Res Philosophica 97 (3):459-469.

ABSTRACT. In my talk I want to extend an argument for the possibility of there being linguistic mistakes put forward by Indrek Reiland (2021). Reiland claims that the denial of there being such thing as linguistc mistakes hinges on the implicit assumption that meaning is determined by the intentions of the speaker. I believe Reiland to be correct, however, I want to defend the claim that linguistic normativity can be made even stronger. I want to argue that if it is possible to reinterpret Reiland’s stance as relating to either metasemantics or metaphysics of words, it is possible to have linguistic normativity without appealing to intentions. The upshot of this approach is that is strengthens the notion of linguistic normativity. It would permit grounding the linguistic norms in practice, without reducing them to convention. As for metasemantics, I believe Reiland’s point can be reformulated so that instead of speaking about private and public perspective on language, we can speak about metasemantic notions of interpretationism and productivism (cf. Simchen 2017), as the former parallel the latter in many aspects. As for metaphysics of words, it itself seems to mirror the debate in metasemantics, at least to some extent. On one hand, there is Kaplan (1990), who claims that the identity conditions for words are fully dependent on the intentions of the speaker — in short, if they intend to use that word, they do use that word. On the other hand, there are Hawthorn and Lepore (2011), who, once again in short, claim that the identity conditions for words depend on how their tokens are interpreted by the public. Drawing from this parallels, the argument for a stronger notion of linguistic normativity is made.

ABSTRACT. Theories of reference for proper names face a persistent metasemantic indeterminacy: descriptivist accounts cannot explain which among competing descriptions fixes reference, and even hybrid approaches like Evans’s fail to specify a principled mechanism for selection. Causal-historical theories, such as Kripke’s, seem to offer a clearer picture through the notion of baptism and causal chains. Yet here too, problems arise — especially concerning the act of ostension and the conditions under which it successfully secures reference to a particular object. These difficulties suggest that no existing theory fully resolves how names attach to objects in a determinate way. This situation invites a metametasemantic inquiry: what determines which metasemantic theory is correct? Are we to appeal to linguistic norms, cognitive architecture, social practices, or metaphysical constraints? Without clear criteria at this higher level, we risk a regress of justification, where each layer of explanation demands yet another. In this paper, I analyze whether two of the most promising metametasemantic candidates—teleological biosemantics and Lewisian reference magnetism — can address these foundational issues. Biosemantics grounds reference in the evolutionary functions of our representational systems, offering a naturalized account of how reference might be biologically constrained. Reference magnetism, in contrast, posits that reference tends to align with “elite” properties — natural kinds or metaphysically privileged entities — which act as attractors in the space of possible referents. I evaluate whether these frameworks not only help resolve metasemantic underdetermination, but also favor specific theories of reference. Tentatively, I argue that biosemantics may lend support to descriptivist elements grounded in evolutionary utility.

ABSTRACT. I aim to discuss a key aspect of the ongoing Travis-McDowell debate concerning the relation between perceptual experience and perceptual judgments. I will address one implication of what I will call the Conceptual Capacities View (CCV), i.e., the idea that the conceptual capacity for judgments can be actualized in sensory awareness. From a Kantian angle, McDowell claims that subjects perceive the world in a “special form that consists in the fact that the faculty we exercise in judgments is in act in our intuitions.” Kant understands that judgments have the function of “bringing various representations under one common representation.” If so, that would imply that what is given to the subject in intuition should include the presentation of something as falling under a generality. However, Travis contends that perception has a fundamental particular nature. For Travis, the relation between perceptual judgments and perception is a “transcategorial” one: the role of perception is to instantiate (non-conceptual) particular cases of (conceptual) general ways for things to be. To offer a middle ground in the Travis-McDowell debate, I claim that conceptual capacities can be distinctly actualized in perception. I argue that the function of judgment in (i) intuition and in (ii) perceptual judgments does not have the same grammar, though (i) and (ii) could be actualizations of the same conceptual capacity of putting different representations under one common representation. The significance of the idea that sensory awareness is conceptual is that perceptual states put to work the capacity of reuniting different representations under one common representation, even though such a capacity, in intuitions, cannot be fully exercised due to the particular nature of sensory awareness. With that in mind, I hope to defend a version of CCV while preserving the idea that perception has an intrinsic particular nature.

ABSTRACT. Recently, philosophers of various stripes have taken up the project of developing a reasons-first (reasons fundamentalist) account of normativity. General premise of this view is that it is both possible and theoretically appealing to provide a reduction or an explication of different normative phenomena–e.g., practical rationality (Parfit 2011), rationality in general (Kiesewetter 2017, Lord 2018), or/and knowledge (Schroder 2021)–in terms of reasons-responsiveness: our ability to recognize and respond to relevant reasons. Although it is often taken for granted that the notion of reason in question is that of the objective normative reason, which is supposed to refer to certain agent-independent facts or states of affairs, it is seldom argued why this should be the case. And when it is, the main point is that only such reasons can guarantee the answer to the ‘why-be-rational’ challenge (Kiesewetter 2020), but this argument does nothing to prove the validity of the contentious distinction between normative and motivating/explanatory reasons, nor does it necessitate the identification of normative reasons with objective features of the situation. Focusing on the reasons-first view of practical rationality, I aim to provide a justification for the claim that the relevant concept of reason should be understood in line with the objectivist account. It is so because only by adopting this account it is possible to begin formulating a genuine explanation of the one of the most paradigmatic instances of practical irrationality–weakness of will (akrasia)–instead of explaining it away. On the competing views of reasons (variants of psychologism and motivational internalism) there could be no such reasons-unresponsiveness which would correspond to the established notion of akrasia–a change in one’s mental states would just lead to the change in one’s reasons, so the action to follow from these states would unexpectedly turn out to be rational.

References: Kiesewetter B. (2017). The Normativity of Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kiesewetter B. (2020). Rationality as Reasons-Responsiveness, Australasian Philosophical Review, vol. 4(4): pp. 332-342. Lord E. (2018). The Importance of Being Rational, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parfit D. (2011). On What Matters, Vol. 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schroeder M. (2021). Reasons First, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ABSTRACT. Conspiracy theories are rampant. Antisemites, antivaxxers, the birther movement are all trends shared by enough of us to thin the social fabric and prevent public reason from having a hold over its electorate. What makes conspiracy theories appealing calls for elucidation.

We argue that laypersons “back into conspiracy theories without really trying”, to paraphrase Nozick. The cognitive mechanisms that lead to endorsing a conspiracy theory are ones that usually work well but occasionally misfire. The explanation is standard in accounts of cognitive biases. We naturally group into small epistemic communities: epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. (A parallel explanation might work for a virtuous phenomenon, vid. what subtends paradigms or research traditions in science.)

Key to echo chambers is that agents beset by different epistemic vices and shortcomings coordinate amongst themselves. This facilitates, by the circulation of a conspiracy theories between members of the same echo chamber, the contagion of the epistemic failures typical of having to believe that conspiracy theory.

Normal epistemic behavior turns vicious as its rules turn deviant, gradually ignoring conceivable alternatives by tweaking relationships of relevance, and prioritizing a different kind of doxastic-cum-pragmatic value (call it ‘post-truth’) at the expense of a desire for plain old truth.

The primary epistemic bad-making features of a conspiracy theory aren’t necessarily due to its content (however dubious that is). Epistemic vices don’t just make conspiracy theories hospitable. They piggy-back on the contagion of conspiracy theories from one agent to another within the same doxastic bubble.

Individual intellectual vices grounded in the coordination of agents within a doxastic bubble that shares a conspiracy theory have consequences. Hardened into bad epistemic character, they mutually probabilify with other bad-making epistemic features: resistance to counterveiling evidence, prioritizing social adhesion over individual truth, and conceiving of one’s self image in terms of group identity.

References:

Cassam, Q. (2019) Conspiracy Theories. Polity Press. Madsen, J.K., Bailey, R., & Pilditch, T.D. (2017) Growing a bayesian conspiracy theorist: An agent-based model, preprint McIntyre, L. (2018) Post-Truth. MIT Press. Montmarquet, J.A. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility. Rowman & Littlefield. Nguyen, C. (2020) Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles. Episteme 17(2): 141-161 Olsson, E. J. (2013) A Bayesian simulation model of group deliberation and polarization. F. Zenker (ed.), Bayesian Argumentation. Springer. Solomon, M. (2006) Groupthink versus The Wisdom of Crowds: The Social Epistemology of Deliberation and Dissent. Southern Journal of Philosophy 44(S1): 28-42.

ABSTRACT. An important question about AI systems—large language models in particular—is whether they need sensory systems in order to think. Thinking requires the capacity to represent. But without some connection to a relevant subject matter, it is unclear how such a capacity could be acquired in the first place. I argue that sensory mechanisms help explain how representational capacities arise by linking mental states to their appropriate objects. In their absence, it becomes difficult to see how mental states could possess representational properties—that is, how they could be about anything at all. I therefore argue that thinking requires sensory grounding.

ABSTRACT. Recently, some have claimed that Large Language Models (LLMs) have spontaneously developed Theory of Mind (ToM), as a by-product of language ability (Kosinski, 2024), or that, on False Belief Task they perform in such way that the results are indistinguishable from ours (Strachan, 2024). I will argue against these claims, by reviewing some of the consequences that might arise from them. I begin with a survey of the reasons given in favour and against both claims, and the analysis reveals that both sides construe theory of mind differently. The comparison between LLMs and humans seems unavailing and might lead to further deepening the conceptual haze around ToM (Wimmer and Perner, 1983; Gopnik, 1993; Leslie, 2000; Goldman, 2006;). If we assume that such models are sensitive to the beliefs of users, what are the consequences for innate approaches to ToM? The question that arises is if LLMs ability to perform well on some linguistic tasks actually entails real capacities in the social-cognition domain (e.g. passing the false belief tests does not entail a bot is capable to detect deception, identify the intentions of the speaker, or ascribe mental states to speakers). I explore the extent to which LLMs seem to show marks consistent to TOM in humans (which- and why-belief ascription, mental states and emotional states inference, pragmatic reasoning, narrative competency) and see if and how they impact our understanding of our own “mindreading abilities”. If these marks are sufficient for claiming that LLMS have developed TOM, then how does it bear on our understanding of theory of mind? Should we perform conceptual engineering? Or should we clarify the status of the assumptions that drive these sorts of claims, stemming, probably, from a too wide understanding of theory of mind or from a wrong approach to how we make sense of intentional actions, or simply from our tendency to anthropomorphise non-human entities (Yıldız, 2025).

References

Goldman, A. I. (2006). Simulating Minds. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Gopnik, A. (1993). How we read our own minds: The illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16: 1–14. Kosinski, M. (2024). Evaluating large language models in theory of mind tasks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(45), e2405460121. Leslie, A. M. (2000). Theory of mind as a mechanism of selective attention. In M. Gazzaniga (ed.), The New Cognitive Neurosciences. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2nd Edition, pp. 1235–1247. Strachan, J. W., Albergo, D., Borghini, G., Pansardi, O., Scaliti, E., Gupta, S., ... & Becchio, C. (2024). Testing theory of mind in large language models and humans. Nature Human Behaviour, 8(7), 1285-1295. Wimmer, H. and Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children’s understanding of deception. Cognition 13: 103–128. Yıldız, T. (2025). The minds we make: A philosophical inquiry into theory of mind and artificial intelligence. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 59(1), 10.

ABSTRACT. In this talk, I will give three different attempts to understand Katherine Jenkins’s account of gender that she presents in “Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman”. These are:

1. x is a woman if and only if x has a female gender identity [W(x) ↔ I(x)] 2. x is a woman if and only if x has a female gender identity and is classed as a woman [W(x) ↔ I(x) & C(x)] 3. x is a woman in the identity sense if and only if x has female gender identity. x is a woman in the class sense if and only if x is socially classed as a woman. [W₁(x) ↔ I(x)] [W₂(x) ↔ C(x)]

I will show that the first attempt is not correct understanding of Jenkins’s account and, also it fails to account for gender oppression. I will show that the second attempt is not correct understanding of Jenkins’s account, and also it fails to include all women and risks creating hierarchies. I will argue that the third attempt is the correct understanding of Jenkins’s account, but it it comes with a metaphysical gap, i.e., fails to give a sufficient metaphysical explanation about the unity of two concepts.

To address this, I propose a new route: 4. x is s a woman if and only if x has a female gender identity or is classed as a woman [W(x) ↔ I(x) ∨ C(x)]

I will argue that this disjunctive definition gains metaphysical coherence when paired with a family resemblance view of social kinds.

References: Barnes, E. (2019). Gender and Gender Terms. Nous, 54(3), 704-730. doi:10.1111/nous.12279 Cosker-Rowland, R. (2023). Recent Work on Gender Identity and Gender. Analysis, 83(4), 801-820. doi:10.1093/analys/anad027 Haslanger, S. (2000). Gender and race: (What) are they? (What) do we want them to be? Noûs, 31-55. doi:10.1111/0029-4624.00201 Jenkins, K. (2016). Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman. Ethics, 126(2), 394-421. doi:10.1086/683535 Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations. (G. E. Anscombe, Ed.) New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.2307/2217461

ABSTRACT. In this talk I conduct a pragmatic analysis of utterances involving gendered expressions, focusing on innovative uses of gendered terms in slang. Conceptual gender pertains to gender-specific terms that include natural kind terms (“man”, “woman”, “boy”, “girl”), kinship terms (“mother”, “brother”) and role names (“actress”, “chairman”). Following Ackerman, who defines conceptual gender as “the gender that is expressed, inferred, and used by a perceiver to classify a referent” (2019, 3), I use the term conceptual gender to encompass notions aligning with natural or notional gender, definitional gender, and semantic gender in linguistic literature. These terms refer to ways of associating lexical items with masculine or feminine properties without necessarily attributing formal features to them. For example, saying “Alex is my mother” entails that Alex is a woman because “mother” means “female parent”. Conceptual gender entails the information about the referent's gender because the gender component is a part of the meaning of the term. However, gendered terms are often used in slang where the gender of the referent differs from the conceptual gender of the term. The examples include the use of "mother" and "mothering" in queer slang (loosely meaning "a feminine icon") which is applicable to people of any gender, and the word "babygirl" which is a popular online term of endearment and is often applied to middle-aged men. I take such usages to be instances of local linguistic innovation where a new linguistic practice emerges and becomes conventionalised in a linguistic community. While typically using gendered terms informs the audience about the referent’s gender, sentences like “Billy Porter is mothering” or “Kendall Roy is so babygirl” can be felicitously uttered and not elicit false inferences (that the referents are women). Key terms: conceptual gender, gendered language, pragmatics, slang, linguistic innovation References: Ackerman, L., (2019). Syntactic and cognitive issues in investigating gendered coreference. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 4(1): 117. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.721

ABSTRACT. The paper develops a cognitive linguistic analysis of selected English and Russian idiomatic expressions involving the domain of EMOTION. Seen from a cognitive linguistic perspective, idiomaticity is not just a matter of language, nor are idioms treated as unanalyzable wholes; rather idiomaticity is a universal aspect and process of human cognition. Cognitive Linguistics assumes that what underlies idiomaticity is the “ubiquitous metaphoricity” of human thought (cf. Katz et al. 1998) that motivates the linguistic meanings. Motivation refers to a speaker’s ability to make sense of an idiomatic expression by reactivating or remotivating their figurativity, i.e., to understand why the idiom has the idiomatic meaning it has with a view to its literal meaning. (Langlotz 2006: 45). Idioms, Kövecses (2002) notes, “are conceptual in nature, their meaning is not arbitrary, and they are ‘conceptually motivated,’ where motivation of idioms arises from knowledge of the cognitive mechanisms such as metaphor, metonymy, conventional knowledge that link figurative meaning to literal. Initially formulated by Potebnya (1862) and later modified by Losev (1982) “motivation-based element” present in the creation of idioms are also described and analised by Russian linguists. For Potebnya, the “internal structure” (or “inner form”) of a linguistic unit ties up with its lexical meaning, its expressivity, imagery and creativity together with the concepts of emotiveness, emotivity and expressivity - the key components of idiomatic meaning. Relying on the metaphor-based approach to emotions as delineated in Kövecses (2015), the paper attempts to answer the question how emotion concepts are related to each other in English and Russian, arguing, following Kövecses (2002), that metaphorical concepts are often embodied, and cultural understandings based on them are also embodied.

ABSTRACT. Epistemic harm is the defining feature of epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007). While the latter concept has received widespread attention in recent years, the concept of epistemic harm and hence, patiency, has gathered comparatively little consideration. The goal of our paper is to analyze and refine this concept thereby expanding its range of applicability to cases previously not considered. We will illustrate this in the case study of nonhuman animals, primarily in farming and research contexts.

In Fricker’s original account (2007), various remarks about the concept of epistemic harm are not integrated into a coherent definition. Dieterle (2023a, 2023b) offered a clarification by referring to epistemic harm as interference with the capacity for pooling and transmitting information. However, following Lopez (2023) she then proceeds to impose further metacognitive requirements: epistemic harm, on this count, presupposes reflection on oneself as a knower and the ability to feel subjective humiliation from being degraded as a knower. We dispute the relevance of such impositions by borrowing an argument on the epistemic injustice of gaslighting: as Podosky (2024) points out, to be gaslit constitutes causing epistemic harm prior to or even without the subject ever becoming aware of their predicament.

Thus, we argue for a definition of epistemic harm analogous to ethical concepts, as thwarting of epistemic interests (Feinberg, 1987; Klocksiem, 2012). This understanding of the term opens it to previously excluded contexts, including suppressing the development of some epistemic interests altogether. We demonstrate this in the case of non-human animals. We will argue that their capacity as knowers is, especially in the contexts of research and factory farming, so thoroughly undermined that they suffer what Medina (2017) refers to as hermeneutical death: A complete destruction of any principally present ability to be a knower – the most extreme case of thwarted epistemic interest.

References: Dieterle, J.M. (2023a). Epistemic Failures and Animal Suffering: A Reply to Podosky. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 12(12): 15–21. Dieterle, J. M. (2023b). Other-Oriented Hermeneutical Injustice, Affected Ignorance, or Human Ignorance?. Social Epistemology, 37(6), 852-863. Feinberg, J. (1987). The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law Volume 1: Harm to Others Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Clarendon Press. Klocksiem, J. (2012). A defense of the counterfactual comparative account of harm. American Philosophical Quarterly, 49(4), 285-300. Lopez, A. (2023). Nonhuman Animals and Epistemic Injustice. J. Ethics & Soc. Phil., 25, 136. Medina, J. (2017). Varieties of hermeneutical injustice. In Kidd, I.J., Medina, J., Pohlhaus, Jr., G. (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice (pp. 41-52). Routledge. Podosky, P. M. (2018). Hermeneutical Injustice and Animal Ethics: Can Nonhuman Animals Suffer from Hermeneutical Injustice?. Journal of Animal Ethics, 8(2), 216-228. Podosky, P. M. C. (2023). On the non-knowing of animal suffering: against gatekeeping epistemic injustice. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective (SERRC),12(10), 19-27. Podosky, P. M. C. (2024). A Defence of Other-Oriented Hermeneutical Injustice. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective (SERRC), 13(1), 26-31. Tuvel, R. D. (2014). Epistemic injustice expanded: A feminist, animal studies approach

ABSTRACT. Filozoficzna refleksja nad istnieniem przebiega w dwóch kierunkach. Pierwszym z nich jest poszukiwanie definicji istnienia, czyli znaczenia terminu „istnieć”, drugim – analiza kryteriów istnienia, to jest sposobów uzasadniania zdań egzystencjalnych. W niniejszym wystąpieniu nie będziemy podnosić kwestii definicji istnienia. Zamiast tego skupimy się na zagadnieniu kryteriów, a właściwie na wąskim wycinku tej problematyki, jakim jest temat kryteriów stosowanych w naukach empirycznych oraz właściwej strategii ich użycia.

Co motywuje nas do podjęcia tej problematyki? Otóż kryteria istnienia w naukach empirycznych podzielić można na probierze, w których zdanie egzystencjalne czepie swą prawomocność z mniej lub bardziej bezpośredniego doświadczenia (kryteria empiryczne), oraz probierze, w których uznanie realności obiektu postulowanego przez teorię ma wyłączną podstawę w potwierdzeniu owej teorii (kryteria teoretyczne). Jednocześnie w literaturze daje się dostrzec skłonność do przywiązywania szczególnej wagi do kryteriów jednego bądź drugiego typu. Jeżeli sięgniemy do prac neopozytywistów, natychmiast odkryjemy, że główny nacisk kładą oni na empiryczne sposoby zdobycia wiedzy o istnienia, zaś do realności przedmiotów czysto teoretycznych podchodzą ze sceptycyzmem. Zupełnie inaczej hierarchię kryteriów widzą z kolei filozofowie pokroju Willarda Van Ormana Quine’a, dla których jedynym środkiem uznawania realności przedmiotów jest szczególna forma kryterium teoretycznego zwana kryterium zobowiązań ontologicznych teorii.

Napięcie między obiema strategiami analizy i użycia kryteriów – poglądem neopozytywistów oraz poglądem Quine’a – widać gołym okiem. Czy w jakikolwiek sposób może ono zostać rozładowane? Naszym zdaniem: tak. Postulowane przez nas rozwiązanie sprowadza się do stwierdzenia, że powyższe strategie są poprawne tylko w pewnych okresach funkcjonowania teorii, lecz samodzielnie nie tłumaczą trybu uzasadniania zdań egzystencjalnych teorii w dowolnym momencie jej trwania. Dotychczasowe próby ujęcia kryteriów istnienia w nauce były po prostu synchroniczne (abstrahowały od rozwoju teorii), podczas gdy logika wykorzystania kryteriów powinna być diachroniczna (zsynchronizowana względem aktualnego stanu teorii naukowej). Zaprezentowanie tego ostatniego podejścia do zagadnienia kryteriów i argumentacja na jego rzecz będzie celem naszego wystąpienia.

ABSTRACT. According to Semantic Eternalism (SE), propositions do not change their truth-values over time. One can argue against SE by the way of counterexamples. An example of discourse in which some sentences express temporal propositions can demonstrate that semantic eternalism is wrong. Recent arguments of this sort have been proposed by Bonomi (2023). He argues that there are propositions about the future that change their truth-values over time. Such a conception is usually referred to as Mutable Futurism, and is not new in philosophy. It was introduced by Geach (1977) and further developed by Todd (2011, 2016) and Andreoletti and Spolaore (2021).

In my presentation, I will introduce a case for Mutable Futurism based on arguments concerning the norms of assertion, akin to the so-called assertion problem discussed by Besson and Hattiangadi (2014). I will explore potential responses that are available to the proponents of SE. There are at least five of them: (1) positing a different norm of assertion; (2) positing a different content for assertions about the future; (3) positing a special speech act of prediction; (4) rejecting factivity as a universal thesis about knowledge; (5) introducing an additional time parameter into the content of assertions about the future.

Each of these replies will be assessed in terms of their potential theoretical costs. The conclusion is that, although the arguments in favor of Mutable Futurism are compelling, they are not decisive, as there remain several plausible ways for the eternalist to resist them.

Selected references

Andreoletti, G. and Spolaore, G. (2021). The future ain’t what it used to be: Strengthening the case for mutable futurism. Synthese, 199(3-4): 10569–10585.

Besson, C., and Hattiangadi, A. (2014). The open future, bivalence and assertion. Philosophical Studies, 167(2): 251–271.

Bonomi, A. (2023). Non-persistent truths. Argumenta, 9(1): 119–156.

Geach, P. (1977). Providence and Evil. Cambridge University Press.

Todd, P. (2011). Geachianism. In Kvanvig, J. L., editor, Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion Volume 3. Oxford University Press.

Todd, P. (2016). On behalf of a mutable future. Synthese, 193(7): 2077–2095.

ABSTRACT. Wbrew krytyce ze strony m.in. B. Russell'a i G.E. Moore'a, w ostatnich latach można zaobserwować wśród filozofów analitycznych wzrost zainteresowania monizmem. To, co początkowo było nieśmiałą próbą rehabilitacji monizmu, z czasem przybrało formę rozwiniętych koncepcji. Dobrymi tego świadectwami są koncepcje Jonathana Schaffera oraz Terrence'a Horgana i Matjaza Potrca. Celem mojego wystąpienia jest systematyka współczesnych form monizmu. Ma to w zamierzeniu ukazać różnice pomiędzy tymi stanowiskami, ujawnić ich metaontologiczne założenia oraz wskazać na silne i słabe strony poszczególnych wersji monizmu. Systematyka ta pozwoli również na konfrontację współczesnego monizmu analitycznego z tradycyjnymi odmianami tego poglądu, znanymi z historii filozofii.

Despite criticism from, among others, Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore, recent years have witnessed a growing interest in monism among analytic philosophers. What initially appeared as a cautious attempt to rehabilitate monism has gradually developed into well-elaborated theories. This is well illustrated by the conceptions of Jonathan Schaffer and Terrence Horgan with Matjaz Potrc. The aim of my presentation is to systematize contemporary forms of monism. This endeavor is intended to highlight the differences between these positions, uncover their metaontological assumptions, and point out the strengths and weaknesses of each version of monism. Such a systematization will also allow for a confrontation between contemporary analytic monism and the traditional forms of this view known from the history of philosophy.