Analytic Philosophy and History: A Mismatch?

In recent years, even some of its own practitioners have accused analytic philosophy of lacking historical awareness. My aim is to show that analytic philosophy and history are not such a mismatch after all. Against the objection that analytic philosophers have unduly ignored the past I argue that for the most part they only resist strong versions of historicism, and for good reasons. The history of philosophy is not the whole of philosophy, as extreme historicists maintain, nor is it indispensable to substantive philosophizing, as mainline historicists have it, it is merely advantageous (pragmatic historicism). Against the objection that analytic histories of philosophy are inevitably anachronistic I argue that it is possible to approach past texts with a view to substantive issues and in a critical spirit (contrary to historicist relativism and to misguided interpretations of the principle of charity). Indeed, such an analytic approach makes not just for better philosophy but also for better histor

Concepts, Conceptual Schemes and Grammar

This paper considers the connection between concepts, conceptual schemes and grammar in Wittgenstein's last writings. It lists eight claims about concepts that one can garner from these writings. It then focuses on one of them, namely that there is an important difference between conceptual and factual problems and investigations. That claim draws in its wake other claims, all of them revolving around the idea of a conceptual scheme, what Wittgenstein calls a ‘grammar'. I explain why Wittgenstein's account does not fall prey to Davidson's animadversions against the idea of a conceptual scheme as a force operating on a pre-conceptual content. In the sequel I deny that the distinction between grammatical and empirical propositions disappears in the last writings: it is neither deliberately abandoned, nor willy-nilly undermined by the admission of hinge propositions in On Certainty or by the role accorded to agreement in judgemen

Concepts: Where Subjectivism Goes Wrong

The debate about concepts has always been shaped by a contrast between subjectivism, which treats them as phenomena in the mind or head of individuals, and objectivism, which insists that they exist independently of individual minds. The most prominent contemporary version of subjectivism is Fodor's RTM. The Fregean charge against subjectivism is that it cannot do justice to the fact that different individuals can share the same concepts. Proponents of RTM have accepted shareability as a ‘non-negotiable constraint'. At the same time they insist that by distinguishing between sign-types and - tokens the Fregean objection cannot just be circumvented but revealed to be fallacious. My paper rehabilitates the Fregean argument against subjectivism. The RTM response rests either on an equivocation of ‘concept'—between types which satisfy the non-negotiable constraint and tokens which are mental particulars in line with RTM doctrine—or on the untenable idea that one and the same entity can be both a shareable type and hence abstract and a concrete particular in the head. Furthermore, subjectivism cannot be rescued by adopting unorthodox metaphysical theories about the type/token and universal/particular contrasts. The final section argues that concepts are not representations or signs, but something represented by signs. Even if RTM is right to explain conceptual thinking by reference to the occurrence of mental representations, concepts themselves cannot be identical with such representation

The Anthropological Difference: What Can Philosophers Do To Identify theDifferences Between Human and Non-human Animals?

This paper considers the question of whether there is a human-animal or ‘anthropological difference'. It starts with a historical introduction to the project of philosophical anthropology (sct. 1). Section 2 explains the philosophical quest for an anthropological difference. Sections 3-4 are methodological and explain how philosophical anthropology should be pursued in my view, namely as impure conceptual analysis. The following two sections discuss two fundamental objections to the very idea of such a difference, biological continuity (sct. 5) and Darwinist anti-essentialism (sct. 6). Section 7 discusses various possible responses to this second objection - potentiality, normality and typicality. It ends by abandoning the idea of an essence possessed by all and only individual human beings. Instead, anthropological differences are to be sought in the realm of capacities underlying specifically human societies (forms of communication and action). The final section argues that if there is such a thing as the anthropological difference, it is connected to language. But it favours a more modest line according to which there are several anthropological differences which jointly underlie the gap separating us from our animal cousin

The (Limited) Space for Justice in Social Animals

While differentialists deny that non-linguistic animals can have a sense of justice, assimilationists credit some animals with such an advanced moral attitude. We approach this debate from a philosophical perspective. First, we outline the history of the notion of justice in philosophy and how various facets of that notion play a role in contemporary empirical investigations of justice among humans. On this basis, we develop a scheme for the elements of justice-relevant situations and for criteria of justice that should be fruitful in studying both humans and animals. Furthermore, we investigate the conceptual connections between a sense of justice, on the one hand, and various other mental powers, on the other, and indicate which of the latter may be beyond the ken of animals. Next, we consider recent empirical research on justice-related phenomena in animals. We argue for an intermediate position: While animals can at least in principle satisfy some preconditions of justice (intentional action, rule-following), others are problematic, notably possessing a notion of desert. A space for justice in social animals exists, yet it is rather limited compared to the rich cultures of justice in humans. Finally, we reflect on some actual or alleged implications of research on animal justice. As regards justice in humans, one should avoid a simplistic image of "natural justice” as boiling down to equal allocation of goods. As regards justice for animals, one should be weary of the contractualist assumption that only those capable of justice themselves are deserving of "just” treatmen

Reading minds or reading scripts? De-intellectualising theory of mind

Funding: National Centres of Competence in Research (NCCR) Evolving Language. Grant Number: #51NF40_180888. Open access funding provided by Universite de Neuchatel.Understanding the origins of human social cognition is a central challenge in contemporary science. In recent decades, the idea of a ‘Theory of Mind’ (ToM) has emerged as the most popular way of explaining unique features of human social cognition. This default view has been progressively undermined by research on ‘implicit’ ToM, which suggests that relevant precursor abilities may already be present in preverbal human infants and great apes. However, this area of research suffers from conceptual difficulties and empirical limitations, including explanatory circularity, over-intellectualisation, and inconsistent empirical replication. Our article breaks new ground by adapting ‘script theory’ for application to both linguistic and non-linguistic agents. It thereby provides a new theoretical framework able to resolve the aforementioned issues, generate novel predictions, and provide a plausible account of how individuals make sense of the behaviour of others. Script theory is based on the premise that pre-verbal infants and great apes are capable of basic forms of agency-detection and non-mentalistic goal understanding, allowing individuals to form event-schemata that are then used to make sense of the behaviour of others. We show how script theory circumvents fundamental problems created by ToM-based frameworks, explains patterns of inconsistent replication, and offers important novel predictions regarding how humans and other animals understand and predict the behaviour of others.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Wittgenstein's Thought Experiments and Relativity Theory

In this paper, I discuss the similarity between Wittgenstein’s use of thought experiments and Relativity Theory. I begin with introducing Wittgenstein’s idea of “thought experiments” and a tentative classification of different kinds of thought experiments in Wittgenstein’s work. Then, after presenting a short recap of some remarks on the analogy between Wittgenstein’s point of view and Einstein’s, I suggest three analogies between the status of Wittgenstein’s mental experiments and Relativity theory: the topics of time dilation, the search for invariants, and the role of measuring tools in Special Relativity. This last point will help to better define Wittgenstein’s idea of description as the core of his philosophical enterprise

Exorcising Grice’s ghost : an empirical approach to studying intentional communication in animals

Language’s intentional nature has been highlighted as a crucial feature distinguishing it from other communication systems. Specifically, language is often thought to depend on highly structured intentional action and mutual mindreading by a communicator and recipient. Whilst similar abilities in animals can shed light on the evolution of intentionality, they remain challenging to detect unambiguously. We revisit animal intentional communication and suggest that progress in identifying analogous capacities has been complicated by (i) the assumption that intentional (that is, voluntary) production of communicative acts requires mental-state attribution, and (ii) variation in approaches investigating communication across sensory modalities. To move forward, we argue that a framework fusing research across modalities and species is required. We structure intentional communication into a series of requirements, each of which can be operationalised, investigated empirically, and must be met for purposive, intentionally communicative acts to be demonstrated. Our unified approach helps elucidate the distribution of animal intentional communication and subsequently serves to clarify what is meant by attributions of intentional communication in animals and humans