We can have credences in an infinite number of propositions—that is, our opinion set can be infinite. Accuracy-first epistemologists have devoted themselves to evaluating credal states with the help of the concept of ‘accuracy’. Unfortunately, under several innocuous assumptions, infinite opinion sets yield several undesirable results, some of which are even fatal, to accuracy-first epistemology. Moreover, accuracy-first epistemologists cannot circumvent these difficulties in any standard way. In this regard, we will suggest a non-standard approach, called a relativistic approach, to accuracy-first epistemology and show that such an approach can successfully circumvent undesirable results while having some advantages over the standard approach.

This paper motivates and defends alethic nihilism, the theory that nothing is true. I first argue that alethic paradoxes like the Liar and Curry motivate nihilism; I then defend the view from objections. The critical discussion has two primary outcomes. First, a proof of concept. Alethic nihilism strikes many as silly or obviously false, even incoherent. I argue that it is in fact well-motivated and internally coherent. Second, I argue that deflationists about truth ought to be nihilists. Deflationists maintain that the utility of the truth predicate is exhausted by its expressive role, and I argue that the truth predicate can still play this expressive role even if nothing is true. As such, deflationists do not stand to lose anything by accepting nihilism. Since they also stand to gain an elegant solution to the alethic paradoxes, on balance deflationists ought to be nihilists.

Recent debates about supererogatory rescues have sought to explain how it can be wrong to perform a suboptimal rescue although it would be permissible not to rescue at all. This paper proposes a new solution to this puzzle. It argues that existing accounts have neglected two critical considerations. First, contrary to what is commonly assumed, a rescue’s supererogatory nature has no bearing on the duties that apply to agents who rescue in supererogatory fashion. Second, we cannot justify harms caused as a side effect of supererogatory rescues by appealing to the fact that it would have been permissible not to rescue at all. Ultimately, the paper proposes, the same duties that apply in cases in which rescuing is required also apply in cases in which rescuing is supererogatory. A rescue’s supererogatory nature, it turns out, is not the game changer we thought it was.

McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time was first published in the 1908 article “The Unreality of Time,” and a revised version appeared in the 1927 book The Nature of Existence. I argue that these two versions are significantly different. The second construction of the argument is important because it neutralizes a compelling objection. McTaggart’s initial argument tries to show that the conception of an A-series is self-contradictory. A natural objection is that the apparent contradiction can be resolved by making clear that an event has incompatible A-properties only successively. McTaggart anticipates and responds to the objection. My main contention is this: McTaggart’s initial response to the objection fails, but in the second construction of his argument he succeeds in showing that the contradiction cannot be resolved in the way suggested by the objection. I also explain why the second construction has been overlooked for so long.

This paper asks: Is the quantifier variantist committed to metaphysical vagueness? My investigation of this question goes via a study of vague existence. I’ll argue that the quantifier variantist is committed to vague existence and that the vague existence posited by the variantist requires a puzzling sort of metaphysical vagueness. Specifically, I distinguish between (what I call) positive and negative metaphysical vagueness. Positive metaphysical vagueness is (roughly) the claim that there is vagueness in the world; negative metaphysical vagueness is (roughly) the claim that there is vagueness that is not in our language or thought. I’ll argue that the quantifier variantist’s commitment to vague existence comes with positive metaphysical vagueness—even if it doesn't require negative metaphysical vagueness.

This paper offers a defense of a much-maligned Leibnizian argument for the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the principle according to which whatever is has a sufficient reason or explanation. While Leibniz’s argument is widely thought to rely on a question-begging premise, the paper offers a wholly original and non-question-begging defense of that premise, a defense that Leibniz did not anticipate. The paper does not present this defense of Leibniz's argument as an interpretation of Leibniz; rather, the paper—more modestly in one way, less modestly in another—simply claims that this argument succeeds.

There is a type of metaphysical picture that surfaces in a range of philosophical discussions, is of intrinsic interest, and yet remains ill-understood. According to this picture, the world contains a range of standpoints relative to which different facts obtain. Any true representation of the world cannot but adopt a particular standpoint. The aim of this paper is to propose a regimentation of a metaphysics that underwrites this picture. Key components are a factive notion of metaphysical relativity, a deflationary notion of adopting standpoints, and two kinds of valid inference, one that allows one to abandon standpoints and one that does not. To better understand how theories formulated in terms of this framework are situated in dialectical space, I sketch a theory in the philosophy of time that admits both temporal and atemporal standpoints.

In recent years, several philosophers have argued that their discipline makes no progress (or not enough in comparison to the “hard sciences”). A key argument for this pessimistic position appeals to the purported fact that philosophers widely and systematically disagree on most major philosophical issues. In this paper, we take a step back from the debate about progress in philosophy specifically and consider the general question: How (if at all) would disagreement within a discipline undermine that discipline’s progress? We reject two arguments from disagreement to a lack of progress, and spell out two accounts of progress on which progress is compatible with disagreements that persist or increase over time. However, we also argue that disagreement can undermine our ability to tell which developments are progressive (and to what degree). So, while disagreement can indeed be a threat to progress, the precise nature of the threat has not been appreciated.

This paper is about two requirements on wish reports whose interaction motivates a novel semantics for these ascriptions. The first requirement concerns the ambiguities that arise when determiner phrases, such as definite descriptions, interact with ‘wish’. More specifically, several theorists have recently argued that attitude ascriptions featuring counterfactual attitude verbs license interpretations on which the determiner phrase is interpreted relative to the subject’s beliefs. The second requirement involves the fact that desire reports in general require decision-theoretic notions for their analysis. The current study is motivated by the fact that no existing account captures both of these aspects of wishing. I develop a semantics for wish reports that makes available belief-relative readings but also allows decision-theoretic notions to play a role in shaping the truth conditions of these ascriptions. The general idea is that we can analyze wishing in terms of a two-dimensional notion of expected utility.

Ontological monists hold that there is only one way of being, while ontological pluralists hold that there are many; for example, concrete objects like tables and chairs exist in a different way from abstract objects like numbers and sets. Correspondingly, the monist will want the familiar existential quantifier as a primitive logical constant, whereas the pluralist will want distinct ones, such as for abstract and concrete existence. In this paper, we consider how the debate between the monist and pluralist relates to the standard test for logicality. We deploy this test and show that it favors the monist.

I examine the once popular claim according to which interpersonal comparisons of welfare are necessary for social choice. I side with current social choice theorists in emphasizing that, on a narrow construal, this necessity claim is refuted beyond appeal. However, I depart from the opinion presently prevailing in social choice theory in highlighting that on a broader construal, this claim proves not only compatible with, but even comforted by, the current state of the field. I submit that all in all, the most accurate philosophical assessment consists not in flatly rejecting this necessity claim, but in accepting it in a suitably revised form.

Philosophers have wanted to work with conceptions of word-competence, or concept-possession, on which being a competent practitioner with a word amounts to being a competent judge of its uses by others. I argue that our implicit conception of competence with a word does not have this presupposition built into it. One implication of this is what I call "modesty" in interpretation: we allow for others, uses of words that we would not allow for ourselves. I develop this point by looking at Saul Kripke's discussion of some famous examples given by Benson Mates, concerning beliefs about beliefs. I defend Mates's point against Kripke's claim that an interpreter who is modest in my sense must be "conceptually confused."