In his paper, Leuenberger (2013) discerns two salient conceptions of logical validity. Strikingly, neither of these conceptions involves modality. He goes on to use these conceptions as a framework to explore certain recent investigations in the logic of modality, where he ingeniously articulates and proves interesting theses about the logic of contingentism. While I think there’s much of interest in Leuenberger’s results, and that his conception of de facto validity gives a unified account of philosophers’ talk of the logic of time and modality, in this note I suggest that perhaps he is too hasty to dismiss the modal conception of validity and that, moreover, his concept of de facto validity may be too inclusive.

Until recently, an almost perfect parallelism seemed to hold between theories of identity through time and across possible worlds, as every account in the temporal case (endurantism, perdurantism, exdurantism) was mirrored by a twin account in the modal case (trans-world identity, identity-via-parts, identity-via-counterparts). Nevertheless, in the recent literature, this parallelism has been broken because of the implementation in the debate of the relation of location. In particular, endurantism has been subject to a more in-depth analysis, and different versions of it, corresponding to different ways an entity can be located in time, emerged. In this article, we provide a precise map of the conceptions at stake, complete the debate by introducing a version of endurantism not yet considered in the debate—we call transcendentism—and show that it allows us to provide an effective interpretation of the relation of trans-world identity and an intuitive solution in the temporal case.

Mereological nihilists are faced with a difficult challenge: explaining ordinary talk about material objects. Popular paraphrase strategies involve plurals, arrangements of particles, or fictions. In this paper, a new paraphrase strategy is put forward that has distinct advantages over its rivals: it is compatible with gunk and emergent properties of macro-objects. The only assumption is a commitment to a liberal view of the nature of simples; the nihilist must be willing to accept the possibility of heterogeneous extended simples. The author suggests reinterpreting the parthood and composition relations as modal. According to this paraphrase, composition is a kind of counterpart relation. The author shows that one can accept that mereological nihilism is metaphysically necessary, while endorsing all the claims of classical mereology. As a result, the nihilists are in exactly the same position as the classical mereologist when it comes to explaining talk about ordinary objects, but without the additional ontology.

There are two intuitions about time. The first is that there’s something special about the present that objectively differentiates it from the past and the future. Call this intuition Specialness. The second is that the time at which we happen to live is just one amongmany other times, all of which are ‘on a par’ when it comes to their forming part of reality. Call this other intuition Egalitarianism. Tradition has it that the so-called ‘A-theories of time’ fare well at addressing the first intuition, but rather badly when it comes to the second. The goal of this article is to offer advice to A-theorists about how to reconcile their view with Egalitarianism.

We develop a theory about the metaphysics of time and modality that combines the conceptual resources devised in recent sympathetic work on ontological pluralism (the thesis that there are fundamentally distinct kinds of being) with the thought that what is past, future, and merely possible is less real than what is present and actual (albeit real enough to serve as truthmakers for statements about the past, future, and merely possible). However, we also show that despite being a coherent, distinctive, and prima facie appealing position, the theory succumbs to what we call the ‘‘problem of mixed ontological status’’. We conclude that the proponents of the theory can only evade these problems by developing ontological pluralism in a radically different way than it has been by its recent sympathizers.

Timothy Williamson (2000) makes a strong prima facie case for the identification of a subject’s total evidence with the subject’s total knowledge (E=K). However, as Brian Weatherson (Ms) has observed, there are intuitively problematic consequences of E=K. In this article, I’ll offer a contextualist implementation of E=K that provides the resources to respond to Weatherson’s argument; the result will be a novel approach to knowledge and evidence that is suggestive of an unexplored contextualist approach to basic knowledge.

In this article, I argue that an epistemic question about knowledge of our own phenomenal states encourages a certain metaphysical picture of consciousness according to which phenomenal states are reflexive mental representations. Section 1 describes and motivates the thesis that phenomenal self-knowledge is ‘receptive’: that is, the view that a subject has knowledge of their phenomenal states only insofar as they are inwardly affected by those states. In Sections 2 and 3, I argue that this model of phenomenal self-knowledge is unable to accommodate knowledge of our own phenomenology or knowledge of our own awareness. In Section 4, I seek a non-receptive model of phenomenal self-knowledge. I argue that Kriegel’s (2009) Self-Representationalist theory of consciousness is uniquely equipped to show how phenomenal self-knowledge is possible.

Standard truthmaker theory has generally assumed a realist account of de re modality and essences. But there are reasons to be skeptical about such a view, and for considering antirealist alternatives. Can truthmaker theory survive in the face of such skepticism? I argue that it can, but that only certain antirealist perspectives on de re modality are acceptable for truthmaker theory. In particular, either a quasi-realist or conventionalist account of de re modality is needed to provide the best account of essential and accidental features that can be put to work in truthmaker theory. An important consequence of this approach is that it offers an account of truthmaking that is consistent with a nominalist perspective on properties, and yet fully respects the ontological ambitions driving truthmaker theory.

In this article, we evaluate the Compositionality Argument for structured propositions. This argument hinges on two seemingly innocuous and widely accepted premises: the Principle of Semantic Compositionality and Propositionalism (the thesis that sentential semantic values are propositions). We show that the Compositionality Argument presupposes that compositionality involves a form of building, and that this metaphysically robust account of compositionality is subject to counter-example: there are compositional representational systems that this principle cannot accommodate. If this is correct, one of the most important arguments for structured propositions is undermined.

After identifying some existing explanations offered by nomic necessitarians for the alleged necessary connections between natural properties and their dispositional or nomic features, I discuss a less explored necessitarian strategy. This strategy is available to Platonists who hold that properties exist necessarily, as most do.

The Effability thesis has it that all propositions can be encoded by a sentence. By contrast, the Ineffability thesis has it that no proposition can be encoded by a sentence. In this article, I undermine an importantmotivation for the Ineffability thesis and advance a proposal concerning what is effable andwhat is not.My strategywill be as follows: First, I’ll note that the Ineffability thesis assumes that propositions/thoughts are determinate. I’ll point out that propositions/thoughts qua the things we believe and mean by our utterances may in fact be indeterminate with regard to, for instance, mental predication and mental reference. I’ll then propose a ‘‘Gradable Effability’’: propositions/thoughts are more or less determinate according to the aims, interests, available information of thinkers, and sentences too encode propositions depending on the aims, interests, available information in the speakers’ conversational setting.

It is argued that if we take grounding to be univocal, then there is a serious tension between truth-grounding and one commonly assumed structural principle for grounding, namely transitivity. The primary claim of the article is that truth-grounding cannot be transitive. Accordingly, it is either the case that grounding is not transitive or that truth-grounding is not grounding, or both.

I argue that the ‘aoristic’ operators, which are intended to describe the logic of vagueness, do not form a standard modal logic. I redefine the operators so that they do form a standard modal logic, provide a semantics of that logic, and argue that the logic is not as strong as standardly claimed.

The Swamping Problem shows that two claims are incompatible: (a) the claim that knowledge has more epistemic value than mere true belief and (b) a strict variant of the claim that all epistemic value is truth or instrumental on truth. Most current solutions reject (b). Carter and Jarvis (2012) and Carter, Jarvis and Rubin (2013) object instead to a principle that underlies the problem. This paper argues that their objections fail and the problem stands. It also outlines a novel solution which rejects (a). By carefully distinguishing value from expected value, one can argue that the greater value of knowledge is merely apparent (Dutant 2012; Petersen 2013).

Formal relationism in the philosophy of mind is the thesis that folk psychological states should be individuated, at least partially, in terms of the purely formal inference-licensing relations between underlying mental representations. It’s supposed to provide a Russellian alternative to a Fregean theory of propositional attitudes. I argue that there’s an inconsistency between the motivation for formal relationism and the use to which it’s put in defense of Russellian propositions. Furthermore, I argue that formal relationism is committed to epiphenomenalism about singular mental content.