Chomsky’s generative approach to linguistics has been debated for decades without consensus. Questions include the status of linguistics as psychology, the psychological reality of grammars, the character of tacit knowledge and the role of intuitions. I focus attention on Michael Devitt’s critique of Chomskyan linguistics along the lines of earlier critiques by Quine, Searle and others. Devitt ascribes an intentional conception of grammatical knowledge that Chomsky repudiates and fails to appreciate the status of Chomsky’s computational formalisms found elsewhere in cognitive science. I argue that Devitt’s alternative to the psychological view—a “linguistic reality” of physical objects as the proper subject matter of linguistics—neglects the problems of tokens as opposed to types and misses the force of Chomsky’s arguments against Behaviourism. Furthermore, I suggest that Devitt’s case against intuitions misunderstands their standard, central role throughout perceptual psychology. Of more general interest, I argue that Devitt’s position exemplifies compelling errors concerning mental representation seen throughout cognitive science and philosophy of mind since the 17th Century.

Michael Devitt has argued that Chomsky, along with many other Linguists and philosophers, is ignorant of the true nature of Generative Linguistics. In particular, Devitt argues that Chomsky and others wrongly believe the proper object of linguistic inquiry to be speakers’ competences, rather than the languages that speakers are competent with. In return, some commentators on Devitt’s work have returned the accusation, arguing that it is Devitt who is ignorant about Linguistics. In this note, I consider whether there might be less to this apparent dispute than meets the eye.

My book, Ignorance of Language (2006a), challenges the received Chomskian “psychological conception” of grammars and proposes a “linguistic conception” according to which a grammar is a theory of a representational system. My response to Guy Longworth rejects his claim in “Ignorance of Linguistics” (2009) that there is “mutual determination” between linguistic and psychological facts with the result that both of these conceptions are true. Peter Slezak’s “Linguistic Explanation and ‘Psychological Reality’” (2009) is full of flagrant misrepresentations of my discussion of the psychological conception and of the psychological reality of linguistic principles and rules. My response summarizes the worst of these misrepresentations.

My aim in this paper is to discuss a metaphysical framework within which to understand “standard linguistic entities” (SLEs), such as words, sentences, phonemes, and other entities routinely employed in linguistic theory. In doing so, I aim to defuse certain kinds of skepticism, challenge convention-based accounts of SLEs, and present a series of distinctions for better understanding what the various accounts of SLEs do and do not accomplish.

The discussion regards moral epistemology as the research of a proper methodology in moral thinking. Coherentism is proposed as the appropriate methodology in the individual context of moral thinking (because of the fact that all the alternatives to coherentism, at least understood as a regulatory ideal, are opposed to rationality), while a qualified form of consensualism is proposed as the appropriate methodology in the context of communitarian or public justification of beliefs.

In his book Moralna spoznaja Baccarini argues that, with respect to the individual reasoning about morality, the method of reflective equilibrium is the appropriate method of moral reasoning. The starting point of my argument is Baccarini’s refutation of Hare’s view. As I see it, one of Baccarini’s central arguments against Hare consists in claiming that Hare’s approach to the amoralist objection weakens the deductive model of moral reasoning. I argue that the amoralist objection also posses a threat to the method of reflective equilibrium. At the end of the paper, I consider another view of moral reasoning which, in my view, is better suited to deal with the amoralist objection.

Rawls’ idea of overlapping consensus is crucial for the public justification of a political conception of justice in modern democratic societies. While overlapping consensus is mostly understood empirically, in the first part of this article we argue that a normative interpretation is more appropriate. Moreover, we try to show that Baccarini’s proposal of qualified consensus, in contrast to an assumed empirical reading, actually exploits the potentials of a normative reading. In the second part, we concern ourselves with the epistemological implications of a normative understanding of overlapping consensus or, more precisely, with the issue of epistemic deontologism. If we claim that consensus should be understood as agreement about not already existing beliefs and reasons, but about beliefs and reasons that citizens should acquire, it can be argued that this implies a thesis about voluntary control over beliefs. We try to show that a normative reading can be compatible with strategies based both on doxastic voluntarism and doxastic involuntarism.

The Reason Why by Edo Pivčević is an unconventional philosophy book. The author takes the wind out of the sails of the sceptic’s argument by removing its basis. It is neither epistemology nor ontology; nor does its outcome fall into the usual categories vis à vis the real, including pragmatism. A complete system is developed through a profound examination of explanation, contrasting the conceptual approach with the unbounded naturalistic kind and its dangers, illuminating examples of the latter kind with misunderstandings and abuses in physics, mathematics and computer science; effectively demonstrating the confusions engenderedby varieties of reductionism. The author erects a rational structure of components which are mutually dependent and self-sustaining through the analysis and endorsement of common dualisms, e.g. necessary and contingent truth, self and the world; while distancing causality and determinism.

Marinković’s book is as inspiring for teachers as it is for readers from two perspectives. They can be reminded of their fundamental dilemmas which are similar, or the same, throughout history. These can be general issues of pedagogy or relationships to authorities. The author tries to find the theoretical ground for a solution to this problem in the concept of the pedagogical act. This is also a link to the second, for us more interesting, perspective, which is focused on teaching philosophy and, therefore, on its teaching methodology. This book discussion explores the scopes and limits of this category from both perspectives. The attitude of the author is challenging enough to invite us to a critical analysis of recent issues such as the implementation of Bologna reform in a transitional context wherewe need to go beyond this limiting ground and use an appropriate approach. In the case of teaching philosophy, we must admit the historical relevance and creativity of the author’s opposition to dogmatic prescriptive insistence of adherence to the form and his offer of the dramaturgy of teaching as an alternative which has its emphasis on the content. The contributions in this field, however, invite us to go beyond the form and the content towards the process.