Late British Empiricism was a research project built around a two-part psychological theory: that thoughts represent their objects by qualitatively resembling them and that thought proceeds by traversing associative links between ideas. The work of Hume, and then of Mill, were the project's highwater marks ; twentieth-century philosophers no longer find the psychology convincing. The problem, as far as the philosophers were concerned, was not so much that the account seemed false upon introspection, nor that the discipline of psychology had (...) itself moved on, but that the psychological theory did not make good on its explanatory obligations: most importantly, a thought's being a mental picture is not a satisfactory account of why it has the content it does. But this reason for rejecting Empiricist psychology, that it could not do its assigned philosophical job, leaves open the possibility of minds for which it is nonetheless a satisfactory description. (shrink)

Elijah Chudnoff elaborates and defends a view of intuition according to which intuition purports to, and reveals, how matters stand in abstract reality by making us aware of that reality through the intellect. He explores the experience of having an intuition; justification for beliefs that derives from intuition; and contact with abstract reality.

What are intuitions? Stereotypical examples may suggest that they are the results of common intellectual reflexes. But some intuitions defy the stereotype: there are hard-won intuitions that take d...

Phenomenology is about subjective aspects of the mind, such as the conscious states associated with vision and touch, and the conscious states associated with emotions and moods, such as feelings of elation or sadness. These states have a distinctive first-person ‘feel’ to them, called their phenomenal character. In this respect they are often taken to be radically different from mental states and processes associated with thought. This is the first book to fully question this orthodoxy and explore the prospects of (...) cognitive phenomenology, applying phenomenology to the study of thought and cognition. Does cognition have its own phenomenal character? Can introspection tell us either way? If consciousness flows in an unbroken ‘stream’ as William James argued, how might a punctuated sequence of thoughts fit into it? Elijah Chudnoff begins with a clarification of the nature of the debate about cognitive phenomenology and the network of concepts and theses that are involved in it. He then examines the following topics: • Introspection and knowledge of our own thoughts • Phenomenal contrast arguments • The value of consciousness • The temporal structure of experience • The holistic character of experience and the interdependence of sensory and cognitive states • The relationship between phenomenal character and mental representation -/- Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, this book is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and informative introduction to and assessment of cognitive phenomenology, whether philosophy student or advanced researcher. It will also be valuable reading for those in related subjects such as philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and epistemology. (shrink)

Perception and intuition are our basic sources of knowledge. They are also capacities we deliberately improve in ways that draw on our knowledge. Elijah Chudnoff explores how this happens, developing an account of the epistemology of expert perception and expert intuition, and a rationalist view of the role of intuition in philosophy.

Ethics Done Right examines how practical reasoning can be put into the service of ethical and moral theory. Elijah Millgram shows that the key to thinking about ethics is to understand generally how to make decisions. The papers in this volume support a methodological approach and trace the connections between two kinds of theory in utilitarianism, in Kantian ethics, in virtue ethics, in Hume's moral philosophy, and in moral particularism. Unlike other studies of ethics, Ethics Done Right does not (...) advocate a particular moral theory. Rather, it offers a tool that enables one to decide for oneself. (shrink)

Experiences justify beliefs about our environment. Sometimes the justification is immediate: seeing a red light immediately justifies believing there is a red light. Other times the justification is mediate: seeing a red light justifies believing one should brake in a way that is mediated by background knowledge of traffic signals. How does this distinction map onto the distinction between what is and what isn't part of the content of experience? Epistemic egalitarians think that experiences immediately justify whatever is part of (...) their content. Epistemic elitists deny this and think that there is some further constraint the contents of experience must satisfy to be immediately justified. Here I defend epistemic elitism, propose a phenomenological account of what the further constraint is, and explore the resulting view's consequences for our knowledge of other minds, and in particular for perceptual theories of this knowledge. (shrink)

Alexander Pruss has recently argued on probabilistic grounds that Christian philosophers should reject Open Futurism—roughly, the thesis that there are no true future contingents—on account of this view’s alleged inability to handle certain statements about infinite futures in a mathematically or religiously adequate manner. We argue that, once the distinction between being true and becoming true is applied to such statements, it is evident that they pose no problem for Open Futurists.

Human beings have always been specialists, but over the past two centuries division of labor has become deeper, ubiquitous, and much more fluid. The form it now takes brings in its wake a series of problems that are simultaneously philosophical and practical, having to do with coordinating the activities of experts in different disciplines who do not understand one another. Because these problems are unrecognized, and because we do not have solutions for them, we are on the verge of an (...) age in which decisions that depend on understanding more than one discipline at a time will be made badly. Since so many decisions do require multidisciplinary knowledge, these philosophical problems are urgent.Some of the puzzles that have traditionally been on philosophers' agendas have to do with intellectual devices developed to handle less extreme forms of specialization. Two of these, necessity and the practical `ought', are given extended treatment in Elijah Millgram's The Great Endarkenment. In this collection of essays, both previously published and new, Millgram pays special attention to ways a focus on cognitive function reframes familiar debates in metaethics and metaphysics. Consequences of hyperspecialization for the theory of practical rationality, for our conception of agency, and for ethics are laid out and discussed. An Afterword considers whether and how philosophers can contribute to solving the very pressing problems created by contemporary division of labor."These always interesting, often brilliant, and contentious essays focus on the question of how we need to reason practically, if we are to flourish, given Millgram's account of our human nature and of the environments that we inhabit. The originality of his thought is matched by his clarity and his wit."--Alasdair MacIntyre, University of Notre Dame. (shrink)

According to proponents of irreducible cognitive phenomenology some cognitive states put one in phenomenal states for which no wholly sensory states suffice. One of the main approaches to defending the view that there is irreducible cognitive phenomenology is to give a phenomenal contrast argument. In this paper I distinguish three kinds of phenomenal contrast argument: what I call pure—represented by Strawson's Jack/Jacques argument—hypothetical—represented by Kriegel's Zoe argument—and glossed—first developed here. I argue that pure and hypothetical phenomenal contrast arguments face significant (...) difficulties, but that there is a sound glossed phenomenal contrast argument for irreducible cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

1. Ḳovets me-igrotaṿ u-mikhtavaṿ -- 2. Śiḥot u-maʼamre ḥokhmah u-musar. Maʼamre hesped, zikaron ṿe-haʻarakhah.

First impressions suggest the following contrast between perception and memory: perception generates new beliefs and reasons, justification, or evidence for those beliefs; memory preserves old beliefs and reasons, justification, or evidence for those beliefs. In this paper, I argue that reflection on perceptual learning gives us reason to adopt an alternative picture on which perception plays both generative and preservative epistemic roles.

I argue that complete metaphysical grounds need not amount to metaphysically sufficient conditions for what they ground. I presented this at the Pacific APA in 2011. A version was R&Red somewhere but I never got around to Ring it, so it remains unpublished. It is cited every once in a while, so I'm uploading it here.

Expertise is traditionally classified into perceptual, cognitive, and motor forms. I argue that the empirical research literature on expertise gives us compelling reasons to reject this traditional classification and accept an alternative. According to the alternative I support there is expertise in forming impressions, which further divides into expertise in forming sensory and intellectual impressions, and there is expertise in performing actions, which further divides into expertise in performing mental and bodily actions. The traditional category of cognitive expertise splits into (...) two--expertise in forming intellectual impressions and expertise in performing mental actions. I consider and address a challenge to my case in favor of adopting this alternative classification of expertise that derives from dual process theories of cognition. (shrink)

Ambitious intellectual endeavours often include methodological preliminaries. Such preliminaries give their authors the opportunity to clarify aims, set terms of evaluation, orient readers for the...

What I have tried to do is elicit and disarm the motivations most likely to give rise to the [counterexamples to the principle crucial to Williams' argument]. Only one of these motivations is still viable: the instrumentalist theory of practical reasoning. But because internalism and instrumentalism are, as it has turned out, so very tightly linked, in disarming the motivations for the objection, I have also inventoried, and given reason to reject, what I have found to be the most common (...) conversationally adduced defences of instrumentalism: the appeals to imagination, to dispositional desires, and so on. The issue remaining from the debate over internalism turns out to be whether [instrumentalism is false---i.e. whether] there are patterns of practical inference that are not directed toward the satisfaction of desire. (shrink)

__Hard Truths__ is a groundbreaking new work in which noted philosopher Elijah Millgram advances a new approach to truth and its role in our day-to-day reasoning. Takes up the hard truths of real reasoning and draws out their implications for logic and metaphysics Introduces and takes issue with prevailing views of the purpose of truth and the way we reason, including deflationism about truth, possible worlds treatments of modality, and antipsychologism in philosophy of logic Develops philosophically ambitious ideas in (...) a style accessible to non-specialists Will make us rethink the place of metaphysics in our daily lives. (shrink)

Here are four examples of “seeing.” You see that something green is wriggling. You see that an iguana is in distress. You see that someone is wrongfully harming an iguana. You see that torturing animals is wrong. The first is an example of low-level perception. You visually represent color and motion. The second is an example of high-level perception. You visually represent kind properties and mental properties. The third is an example of moral perception. You have an impression of moral (...) properties. The fourth is an example of intuition. You intellectually grasp a general moral truth. Should moral perceptions be thought of as high-level perceptions or as intuitions? Most proponents of moral perception have thought of them as high-level perceptions. I give epistemological and methodological reasons for thinking that at least some are examples of what I call low-level intuitions—experiences in which we both apprehend abstract generalities and apply them to concrete particulars. (shrink)

There is a felt difference between following an argument to its conclusion and keeping up with an argument in your judgments while failing to see how its conclusion follows from its premises. In the first case there’s what I’m calling an inferential seeming, in the second case there isn’t. Inferential seemings exhibit a cluster of functional and normative characteristics whose integration in one mental state is puzzling. Several recent accounts of inferring suggest inferential seemings play a significant role in the (...) process, but none provides a fully satisfactory understanding of inferential seemings themselves. In this paper I critically examine theoretical options on offer in the existing literature, then develop an alternative view. I discuss implications for recent debates about general principles governing inference, such as Fumerton’s Principle of Inferential Justification and Boghossian’s Taking Condition. (shrink)

Itself a pleasure to read, this book is full of inventive arguments and conveys Millgram's bold thesis with elegance and force.

This essay explores the validity of Gregory Boyd’s open theistic account of the nature of the future. In particular, it is an investigation into whether Boyd’s logical square of opposition for future contingents provides a model of reality for free will theists that can preserve both bivalence and a classical conception of omniscience. In what follows, I argue that it can.

The contemporary philosophical debate over practical reasoning---over how one ought to figure out what to do---has been almost entirely focused on whether there is more to it than means-ends reasoning. But a prior and very difficult question has to do with why instrumental deliberation is so important an aspect of our cognitive life. I consider an answer broached by Harry Frankfurt, that having ends is the alternative to being literally bored out of one’s mind, and adapt an argument from John (...) Stuart Mill’s political and psychological writings to show what more there is to not being bored than just having something to aim for. (shrink)

In this paper I articulate and defend a view that I call phenomenal dogmatism about intuitive justification. It is dogmatic because it includes the thesis: if it intuitively seems to you that p, then you thereby have some prima facie justification for believing that p. It is phenomenalist because it includes the thesis: intuitions justify us in believing their contents in virtue of their phenomenology—and in particular their presentational phenomenology. I explore the nature of presentational phenomenology as it occurs perception, (...) and I make a case for thinking that it is present in a wide variety of logical, mathematical, and philosophical intuitions. (shrink)

The inception of democracy in South Africa faced the oppression of women as one of the challenges. The duty to improve women’s position in society is not the responsibility of a few people alone, but of everyone. According to the researcher, the church has not done enough pastorally in this regard. In denouncing the oppression of women, the Christian community should also support the victims of abuse. This article intends to unmask collusion with patriarchal societies including the Jewish society in (...) Jesus’ time by mapping out the forms of harassment and embarrassment inflicted upon women. The study shows how pastoral care can help victims of oppression. A re-reading of John 8:1–11 will inform the, how can the verses above be used in counselling the victims of gender oppression. This study will formulate pastoral guidelines from Jesus’ response to the Pharisees, the Scribes and the woman. (shrink)

By a reasoned change in logic I mean a change in the logic with which you make inferences that is based on your evidence. An argument sourced in recently published material Kripke lectured on in the 1970s, and dubbed the Adoption Problem by Birman (then Padró) in her 2015 dissertation, challenges the possibility of reasoned changes in logic. I explain why evidentialists should be alarmed by this challenge, and then I go on to dispel it. The Adoption Problem rests on (...) a failure to distinguish between logical principles such as Universal Instantiation and Modus Ponens which might or might not govern your inferences with superficially similar laws which must govern your cognitive architecture. (shrink)

Aron Gurwitsch made two main contributions to phenomenology. He showed how to import Gestalt theoretical ideas into Husserl’s framework of constitutive phenomenology. And he explored the light this move sheds on both the overall structure of experience and on particular kinds of experience, especially perceptual experiences and conscious shifts in attention. The primary focus of this paper is the overall structure of experience. I show how Gurwitsch’s Gestalt theoretically informed phenomenological investigations provide a basis for defending what I will call (...) Phenomenal Holism, the view that all the parts of a total phenomenal state metaphysically depend on it. To illustrate how the ideas developed along the way can be used in advancing work on the phenomenology of particular kinds of experience, I draw on them in defending Husserl’s view that we can be aware of abstract objects against a phenomenological objection. (shrink)

Reflection on the possibility of cases in which experience is cognitively penetrated has suggested to many that an experience's etiology can reduce its capacity to provide prima facie justification for believing its content below a baseline. This is epistemic downgrade due to etiology, and its possibility is incompatible with phenomenal conservatism. I develop a view that explains the epistemic deficiency in certain possible cases of cognitive penetration but on which there is no epistemic downgrading below a baseline and on which (...) etiology plays no explanatory role. This view is not phenomenal conservatism exactly, but it does capture what’s right about phenomenal conservatism. (shrink)

What are intuitions? According to doxastic views, they are doxastic attitudes or dispositions, such as judgments or inclinations to make judgments. According to perceptualist views, they are—like perceptual experiences—pre-doxastic experiences that—unlike perceptual experiences—represent abstract matters as being a certain way. In this paper I argue against doxasticism and in favor of perceptualism. I describe two features that militate against doxasticist views of perception itself: perception is belief-independent and perception is presentational. Then I argue that intuitions also have both features. The (...) upshot is that intuitions are importantly similar to perceptual experiences, and so should not be identified with doxastic attitudes or dispositions. I consider a popular argument from the introspective absence of sui generis intuition experiences in favor of doxasticism. I develop a conception of intuition experiences that helps to defuse this argument. (shrink)

According to Michael Bergmann’s “intuitionist particularism,” our position with respect to skeptical arguments is much the same as it was with respect to Zeno’s paradoxes of motion prior to our developing sophisticated theories of the continuum. We observed ourselves move, and that closed the case in favor of the ability to move, even if we had no general theory about that ability. We observe ourselves form justified beliefs, and that closes the case in favor of the ability to form justified (...) beliefs, even if we have no general theory about that ability. I think this is a mistake. Our position with respect to skeptical arguments is like our current position with respect to Zeno’s paradoxes. Mathematics shows where Zeno’s reasoning goes wrong and provisions explanations of the ability to move. Epistemology shows where the skeptic’s reasoning goes wrong and provisions explanations of the ability to form justified beliefs. (shrink)

According to the most popular non-skeptical views about intuition, intuitions justify beliefs because they are based on understanding. More precisely: if intuiting that p justifies you in believing that p it does so because your intuition is based on your understanding of the proposition that p. The aim of this paper is to raise some challenges for accounts of intuitive justification along these lines. I pursue this project from a non-skeptical perspective. I argue that there are cases in which intuiting (...) that p justifies you in believing that p, but such that there is no compelling reason to think this is because your intuition is based on your understanding of the proposition that p. (shrink)

Dogmatists and phenomenal conservatives think that if it perceptually seems to you that p, then you thereby have some prima facie justification for believing that p. Increasingly, writers about these views have argued that perceptual seemings are composed of two other states: a sensation followed by a seeming. In this article we critically examine this movement. First we argue that there are no compelling reasons to think of perceptual seemings as so composed. Second we argue that even if they were (...) so composed, this underlying disunity in metaphysical or psychological structure would fall below the threshold of epistemic significance. (shrink)

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/4772.

In a previous issue of Philosophia Christi, Kirk MacGregor responded to an essay of mine in which I argued for a neo-Molinist account of open theism. The argument demonstrated how, given standard counterfactual semantics, one could derive an “open future square of opposition,” that is, a depiction of the logical relations that hold between future-tense statements from an open theistic standpoint. Conceding the validity of the argument, MacGregor nevertheless sought to deny its soundness by criticizing both its conclusion and the (...) Stalnaker-Lewis semantics on which the argument was based. In this paper, I argue that MacGregor’s reasons for rejecting the open future square, as well as his Molinist alternative to the Stalnaker-Lewis semantics, are uncompelling. (shrink)