Restricting the fourth reading

Szabó (2010, 2011) argues that DPs in intensional contexts have specific-opaque readings, in which their determiner scopes above some intensional operator while their restrictor is nevertheless interpreted in the scope of the operator. This poses a potential problem to prominent theories of intensionality (e.g. Percus 2000, Keshet 2008) in which wide quantificational scope (specificity) implies transparency. We attempt to restrict the scope of the problem by demonstrating that an important sub-class of Szabó's examples is syntactically restricted to relativization environments, and can be generated by invoking independently motivated mechanisms for NP reconstruction into relative clauses without calling into question commonly made assumptions about intensional constructions

Preliminaries for a substitution theory of de re

 We examine whether several challenges for transparent evaluation theories of de re can be accounted for by a single mechanism of propositional substitution. We provide necessary conditions for replacing the prejacent of an attitude with another salient proposition, and review some merits and weaknesses of this approach

Distributed utterances

I propose an apparatus for handling intrasentential change in context. The standard approach has problems with sentences with multiple occurrences of the same demonstrative or indexical. My proposal involves the idea that contexts can be complex. Complex contexts are built out of (“simple”) Kaplanian contexts by ordered n-tupling. With these we can revise the clauses of Kaplan’s Logic of Demonstratives so that each part of a sentence is taken in a different component of a complex context. I consider other applications of the framework: to agentially distributed utterances (ones made partly by one speaker and partly by another); to an account of scare-quoting; and to an account of a binding-like phenomenon that avoids what Kit Fine calls “the antinomy of the variable.

Intergenerational Justice Today

UID/FIL/00183/2013A theory of intergenerational justice consists in the study of the moral and political status of the relations between present and past or future people, more specifically, of the obligations and entitlements they can potentially generate. The challenges that justify talking about responsibilities between generations are myriad (e.g., the amount of public debt that is fair to incur; the funding of future pensions; reparations for past wrongs; climate change). And the disputes they prompt can focus on the past just as much as on the present, even though the fact that the human species has reached a state of technological progress that enables it to have an irredeemable impact on the planet and perhaps even endanger future human existence tends to make concerns about the future more pressing. Debates on intergenerational justice are twofold. The first revolves around the issue of whether claims of justice across generations whose members' lifetimes do not necessarily overlap could be justified. And the second revolves around the specific conception of justice in play, that is, around the nature of the standard that must be applied as well as around the identification of the contents of the duties that present generations supposedly have vis‐à‐vis past or future generations. This survey article depicts the conceptual and argumentative framework in which these debates are set. It aims to outline certain of the main features shared by the most influential contemporary theories of intergenerational justice, and the problems inherent in them. It concludes by suggesting that, even though the idea of succeeding generations is merely an abstraction, there are specific empirical states of affairs that require different theoretical responses to intergenerational justice.authorsversionpublishe

The authority of pleasure

The aim of the paper is to reassess the prospects of a widely neglected affective conception of the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art. On the proposed picture, the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art are non-contingently constituted by a particular kind of pleasure. Artworks that are valuable qua artworks merit, deserve, and call for a certain pleasure, the same pleasure that reveals (or at least purports to reveal) them to be valuable in the way that they are, and constitutes their aesthetic evaluation and appreciation. This is why and how art is non-contingently related to pleasure. Call this, the Affective View. While I don’t advance conclusive arguments for the Affective View in this paper, I aim to reassess its prospects by (1) undermining central objections against it, (2) dissociating it from hedonism about the value of artworks (the view that this value is grounded in, and explained by, its possessors’ power to please), and (3) introducing some observations on the practice of art in support of it. Given that the objections I discuss miss their target, and given the observations in support of it, I conclude that the Affective View is worth serious reconsideration

MENTAL PAINKILLERS AND REASONS FOR PAIN

Abstract What does bodily pain have in common with mental pain? According to “evaluativism,” both are representations of something bad. This paper puts forward three claims. First, that evaluativism vis-à-vis bodily pain is false for it renders it irrational to take painkillers. Second, that evaluativism vis-à-vis mental pain is true. Third, that this difference between bodily and mental pain stems from the fact that only the latter is normative, that is, based on reasons. The normative difference between bodily and mental pain implies that mental pains are not bad, while bodily pains are not representations

Is there a Puzzle about Water?

Mark Johnston argues that the identity between water and H2O generates a puzzle: Ice is related to H2O just as water is related to H2O. If water is identical to H2O, so is ice, and we end up with an absurdity: water is ice. This paper suggests a way to preserve the identity between water and H2O without this absurd result

Morality, Voluntary Laws, and State Neutrality

Kantian political philosophies stress that a state ought to be “neutral” (Rawls), “minimal” (Nozick), or “public” (Ripstein’s Kant), as part of its duty to respect its citizens’ freedom to pursue whatever ends these citizens find valuable. States are under duty merely to secure citizens’ independence from each other and from the state. In contrast, Kantian morality contends that individuals are subject to a duty to pursue certain “obligatory” ends, viz., ends that emerge from the intrinsic value of personhood and autonomy. In some cases, hindering one’s freedom is necessary for promoting these ends. This essay describes circumstances in which a legal right to interfere with one’s property and body in promoting obligatory ends is justified, even though such a right compromises states’ neutrality. This description sheds a new light on the relation between the optimal legal system (“Right”) and morality (“Virtue”) and between justice and truth