This paper does three things. First, it presents a new interpretation of Avicenna’s influential argument, the Flying Man. One nice feature of this interpretation is that it vindicates the argument’s validity. Unlike the cogito-inspired case for dualism, the Flying Man isn’t undermined by neglect of referential opacity. Second, it compares Avicenna’s argument with Anscombe’s take on the possibility of conscious thought under sensory deprivation. Finally, the paper concludes with a brief critical assessment. Several possibilities are considered.

It is widely held that counterfactuals, unlike attitude ascriptions, preserve the referential transparency of their constituents, i.e., that counterfactuals validate the substitution of identicals when their constituents do. The only putative counterexamples in the literature come from counterpossibles, i.e., counterfactuals with impossible antecedents. Advocates of counterpossibilism, i.e., the view that counterpossibles are not all vacuous, argue that counterpossibles can generate referential opacity. But in order to explain why most substitution inferences into counterfactuals seem valid, counterpossibilists also often (...) maintain that counterfactuals with possible antecedents are transparency‐preserving. I argue that if counterpossibles can generate opacity, then so can ordinary counterfactuals with possible antecedents. Utilizing an analogy between counterfactuals and attitude ascriptions, I provide a counterpossibilist‐friendly explanation for the apparent validity of substitution inferences into counterfactuals. I conclude by suggesting that the debate over counterpossibles is closely tied to questions concerning the extent to which counterfactuals are more like attitude ascriptions and epistemic operators than previously recognized. (shrink)

Failure of substitutivity of coreferential terms, one of the hallmarks of referential opacity, is standardly explained in terms of the presence of an expression (such as a verb of propositional attitude, a modal adverb or quotation marks) with opacity-inducing properties. It is thus assumed that any term in a complex expression for which substitutivity fails will be within the scope of an expression of one of these types, and that where there is an expression of one of (...) these types there will be failure of substitutivity for terms within its scope. I shall discuss a series of examples that have been thought to challenge this explanation by exhibiting failure of substitutivity of coreferential terms for positions not within the scope of any of the standard opacity-inducing expressions. If these examples are genuine, then the usual explanations of opacity are either incomplete – because there are sources of opacity other than those standardly identified, or completely mistaken – because the standardly identified expressions are not causes of opacity. I will argue, however, that the examples only exhibit failure of substitutivity of non-coreferential terms, and, hence, do not present a challenge to standard explanations of opacity. (shrink)

My paper characterizes religious beliefs in terms of vagueness. I introduce my topic by providing a general overview of my main claims. In the subsequent section, I develop basic distinctions and terminology for handling the notion of religious tradition and capturing vagueness. In the following sections, I make the case for my claim that religious beliefs are vague by developing a general argument from the interconnection between the referential opacity of religious belief content and the long-term communitarian history (...) of the precisification of what such content means. I start from describing an empirical example in the third section, and then I move to settle the matter in a conceptually argumentative frame in the fourth one. My conclusions in the final section address a few of consequences relevant to debates about religious epistemology and religious diversity. (shrink)

In this paper, I assess whether indexical attitudes, e.g. beliefs and desires, have any special properties or present any special challenge to theories of propositional attitudes. I being by investigating the claim that allegedly problematic indexical cases are just instances of the familiar phenomenon of referential opacity. Regardless of endorsing that claim, I provide an argument to the effect that indexical attitudes do have a special property. My argument relies on the fact that one cannot account for what (...) is it to share someone else’s indexical attitudes without rejecting some plausible thesis about propositional attitudes. In the end, I assess Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever’s considerations on intentional action and extract an argument from them that could – if successful – neutralize my own. I finish by arguing that their argument has an important flaw, thus failing to convince us that indexical attitudes are just as ordinary as any other. (shrink)

This paper develops the situational model of primate beliefs from the Prior-Lurz line of thought. There is a strong skepticism concerning primate beliefs in the analytic tradition which holds that beliefs have to be propositional and non-human animals do not have them. The response offered in this paper is twofold. First, two arguments against the propositional model as applied to other animals are put forward: an a priori argument from referential opacity and an empirical argument from varieties of (...) working memory. Second, the Prior-Lurz situational model based on state of affairs as opposed to propositions is introduced and defended with two significant modifications. With this model of primate beliefs we can make progress in understanding how other primates can have certain mindreading capacity. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Theaetetus establishes conditions on objects of knowledge which entail that only of Forms can there be knowledge. Plato's arguments for this are valid. The principles needed to make Plato's premises true will turn out to have deep connection with important parts of Plato's over-all theory, and to have consequences which Plato, in the middle dialogues, seems to welcome on other grounds as well.

This paper presents a formal theorem proving the structural incoherence of Counterfactual Freedom (CFF)—the ability to have done otherwise—within any causally and temporally consistent epistemic framework. Building upon established work in prediction and self-reference paradoxes (e.g., Newcomb’s Problem), it introduces the Fixed-Point Paradox (FPP) Theorem: an embedded agent cannot possess both epistemic access (□ₖE) to a future action and the modal power of CFF (◇ₘ¬E) to alter it without generating a deductive logical contradiction. -/- The argument grounds the FPP in (...) fundamental limits of computability theory, informational closure, and epistemic logic, demonstrating that CFF is a formally uncomputable property for any self-referential system. This structural condition yields the Axiomatic Opacity Constraint, showing that CFF is logically trapped in an inescapable dilemma between being unverifiable and unfalsifiable (Horn 1, Theorem 1) and contradiction (Horn 2, Theorem 2). The paper employs a Closure Theorem to reduce the free-will problem to a single coherent descriptive model: a compatibilist framework of measurable, computable reason-responsiveness (the ρ-metric). -/- What remains, after the formal elimination of CFF, is a semantic and normative debate over whether this ρ-metric form of agency ought to be called freedom. The result vindicates Aristotle’s intuition about future contingents while integrating modern modal logic, computational epistemology, and theoretical physics. -/- An accompanying interactive simulation illustrating the Fixed-Point Paradox and the ρ-metric model is available at the link provided. -/- This paper presents the core logical proof establishing the incoherence of counterfactual freedom. For the complete eliminative argument including empirical adequacy conditions, the Hard Determinist Dilemma, and practical applications, see The Free Will Solution: A Formal Resolution to Two and a Half Millennia of Philosophical Struggle (GP², 2025) available via the other provided link. (shrink)

Un paralogisme semble commis dans la démonstration par Aristote du principe psychologique de non-contradiction : à partir d’un principe performatif d’assertion (dire quelque chose, c’est le croire), une approche moderne nous incline à prétendre qu’Aristote présuppose une transparence référentielle des contextes opaques de croyance afin de corréler les versions psychologique et logique. Nous tenterons de restituer la preuve du principe (I). Au moyen de la formalisation moderne, nous appliquerons cette explication à quelques paradoxes (II). Nous en conclurons la nature de (...) la non-contradiction (III), avant de proposer une "dissolution" syntaxique du problème d'opacité des contextes d'attitudes propositionnelles. Cette dissolution exprimera un certain scepticisme face aux approches formelles de l'intentionnalité. (shrink)

The relevance of any logical analysis lies in its ability to solve paradoxes and trace conceptual troubles back; with this respect, the task of epistemic logic is to handle paradoxes in connection with the concept of knowledge. Epistemic logic is currently introduced as the logical analysis of crucial concepts within epistemology, namely: knowledge, belief, truth, and justification. An alternative approach will be advanced here in order to enlighten such a discourse, as centred upon the word assertion and displayed in terms (...) of utterance. Insofar as epistemic modalities express some attitudes, the intentionality of discourse will be emphasized within an illocutionary modal logic. Two large views will range over the whole study: declarative and epistemic sentences have one and the same logic (assertion logic); the plurality of languages games doesn’t entail any logical pluralism. -/- La valeur d'une analyse logique réside dans sa capacité à résoudre des paradoxes et à comprendre l'origine de nos problèmes conceptuels ; à ce titre, le rôle d'une logique épistémique est de traiter des paradoxes liés au concept de connaissance. On présente généralement la logique épistémique comme une analyse logique de concepts centraux en épistémologie : connaissance, croyance, vérité, justification. Une autre approche sera proposée ici en vue de clarifier ce genre de discours, centrée sur la notion d'assertion et décrite en termes d'énonciation. Parce que les modalités épistémiques expriment des attitudes, c'est l'intentionnalité du discours qui sera mise en valeur dans le cadre d'une logique modale illocutoire. Deux thèses transversales parcourront l'ensemble du travail : les énoncés déclaratifs et épistémiques partagent la même logique (logique assertorique) ; la pluralité des jeux de langages n'implique pas un pluralisme logique. (shrink)

Recursive Epistemic Modeling (REM) is introduced as a formal, mechanical architecture for reasoning about opaque systems. Rather than describe a worldview, the framework provides a method for generating worldviews, a recursive tool for constructing, testing, and updating models when internal structure is inaccessible. Situated within intellectual traditions such as cybernetics, autopoiesis, second-order observation, and distinction theory, REM extends these moves by giving observers a repeatable, transferable, mechanically explicit process for modeling black-box systems—including AI models, human cognition, social systems, and self- (...) class='Hi'>referential processes. -/- The McPhetridge Experiment provides empirical grounding by demonstrating that independent observers interacting with a shared semantic substrate (LLMs, search engines) converge on stable conceptual structures they did not design. This convergence validates the claim that the semantic world is externally stable enough to support predictive modeling and that recursive epistemic methods yield behavioral predictions, even under opacity. -/- REM is proposed not as a theory within a field, but as a generator of theories across fields, structurally comparable to the major meta-moves of Gödel, Spencer-Brown, Maturana, Varela, Bateson, and Hofstadter—without equating magnitude, only category. (shrink)

If an arithmetical theory internalizes an axiom predicate with a modest closure principle, then a definitional identity can render an axiom inconsistent that would otherwise be consistent. The identity in question creates a directly self-referential constant in the style of Kripke (2023). The resulting phenomenon is structurally akin to the liar paradox but arises without semantic vocabulary. It suggests that axiomhood exhibits liar-like fragility under naive internalization.

In this paper I argue that it is possible to attribute beliefs and other intentional states to mute animals. This kind of attribution is substantial, in that it does allow for some minimal form of co-referential failure.

Advancements in machine learning have fuelled the popularity of using AI decision algorithms in procedures such as bail hearings, medical diagnoses and recruitment. Academic articles, policy texts, and popularizing books alike warn that such algorithms tend to be opaque: they do not provide explanations for their outcomes. Building on a causal account of transparency and opacity as well as recent work on the value of causal explanation, I formulate a moral concern for opaque algorithms that is yet to receive (...) a systematic treatment in the literature: when such algorithms are used in life-changing decisions, they can obstruct us from effectively shaping our lives according to our goals and preferences, thus undermining our autonomy. I argue that this concern deserves closer attention as it furnishes the call for transparency in algorithmic decision-making with both new tools and new challenges. (shrink)

It is known that big data analytics and AI pose a threat to privacy, and that some of this is due to some kind of “black box problem” in AI. I explain how this becomes a problem in the context of justification for judgments and actions. Furthermore, I suggest distinguishing three kinds of opacity: 1) the subjects do not know what the system does (“shallow opacity”), 2) the analysts do not know what the system does (“standard black box (...) opacity”), or 3) the analysts cannot possibly know what the system might do (“deep opacity”). If the agents, data subjects as well as analytics experts, operate under opacity, then these agents cannot provide justifications for judgments that are necessary to protect privacy, e.g., they cannot give “informed consent”, or guarantee “anonymity.” It follows from these points that agents in big data analytics and AI ofen cannot make the judgments needed to protect privacy. So I conclude that big data analytics makes the privacy problems worse and the remedies less effective. As a positive note, I provide a brief outlook on technical ways to handle this situation. (shrink)

This paper develops a methodological conception of opacity grounded in the structural incompletion of reflective systems. In comparative and decolonial contexts, the demand for mutual legibility often reproduces the same totalizing logic it seeks to resist. Against this tendency, opacity is reframed not as a barrier to understanding but as its generative limit-condition: the recursive point at which a system confronts the non-coincidence that makes coherence possible. Drawing on Bernard Williams’s account of ethical integrity and Enrique Dussel’s notion (...) of exteriority—and distinguishing this structural use of opacity from Édouard Glissant’s political right to opacity—the paper identifies a shared recursive pattern underlying ethical self-limitation and philosophical responsibility. Recursion is developed as a formal operation through which linguistic, cognitive, ethical, and comparative systems sustain identity by incorporating their own remainder. On this view, the decolonial condition reflects philosophy’s exposure to its own internal exteriority: the recognition that universality and plurality are structurally intertwined. The result is a set of methodological principles—non-coincidence, integrity, and recursion—offered as a framework for comparative and world philosophy that preserves relation without transparency and universality without totalization. (shrink)

This paper explores the view that the vocabulary of metaphysical fundamentality is opaque, using Sider’s theory of structure as a motivating case study throughout. Two conceptions of fundamentality are distinguished, only one of which can explain why the vocabulary of fundamentality is opaque.

NOTE TO THE READER - December, 2021 ●●●●● After a long period of time devoted to research in other areas, the author returned to the subject of this paper in a book-length study, CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning. In this book (Chapter 11, “The Metalogic of Meaning”), the position developed in the 1982 paper, "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning", has been substantively revised and several important corrections made. It is recommended that readers read (...) the revised and corrected version that appears in the book, CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON. ●●●●● The book is available in a printed edition, ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6, from online booksellers such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and through independent bookstores. The book is also available as a freely downloadable _corrected second edition_ eBook, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5458352, through PhilSci, PhilPapers, HAL, and other online archives. ●●●●● In addition to the above-mentioned book, readers may find "A Primer on Bartlett's CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON" to be useful as a guide to the nearly 900-page CRITIQUE. The primer is available as a free download through PhilPapers. ●●●●● "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning" describes a logically compelling criterion of meaning — that is, a necessary condition of meaning, one which is non-arbitrary and compelling. One cannot _not_ accept the proposed criterion without self-referential inconsistency. This “metalogical” variety of self-referential inconsistency is new, opening a third category beyond semantical and pragmatical forms of self-referential inconsistency. ●●●●● It is argued that such a criterion of meaning can serve as an instrument of internal criticism for any theoretical framework that permits reference to a class of objects. The paper combines the concern of the logical empiricists to formulate a rigorous meaning criterion, with the analytical interest in identifying and eliminating self-defeating statements through an analysis of the referential structure of theories. ●●●●● The paper is followed by a list of other publications by the author that further develop and extend the ideas presented here. (shrink)

Nietzsche believes that we do not know our own actions, nor their real motives. This belief, however, is but a consequence of his assuming a quite general skepticism about introspection. The main aim of this paper is to offer a reading of this last view, which I shall call the Inner Opacity (IO) view. In the first part of the paper I show that a strong motivation behind IO lies in Nietzsche’s claim that self-knowledge exploits the same set of (...) cognitive capacities as well as the same folk-psychological framework involved in outward-directed mind-reading. In the second part I turn to Nietzsche’s view of agency and argue that he sees a fundamental discrepancy between the conscious attitudes we have introspective access to, on the one hand, and the subpersonal processes and states occurring at the unconscious level of the drives, on the other hand. (shrink)

Federated learning (FL) is a machine learning (ML) approach that allows multiple devices or institutions to collaboratively train an ML model without sharing their local data with a third-party. It has recently received significant attention as a promising way to overcome longstanding ethical obstacles to training medical ML models with patient health data. This paper examines the promise of FL in healthcare from an ethical perspective. It argues that medical FL generates a new variety of opacity – federation (...) class='Hi'>opacity, wherein stakeholders cannot access, analyze, or curate the data on which a model has been trained – which (a) presents distinctive ethical challenges concerning institutional fairness and accountability in medical ML; and (b) makes FL models especially vulnerable to data poisoning attacks. It then identifies several key claims about the expected benefits of FL in healthcare and argues that they may be either exaggerated, misleading, or incomplete – often due to the problem of federation opacity. (shrink)

This is a reply to commentators in the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport's special issue symposium on GAMES: AGENCY AS ART. I respond to criticisms concerning the value of achievement play and striving play, the transparency and opacity of play, the artistic status of games, and many more.

attributive/referential. Pragmatic intrusion.

This chapter offers a new framework for approaching the notions of linguistic density and compression so central to discussions of the nature of poetic language. For this chapter, semantic density and like features of poetic language turn out to be forms of poetic opacity. Indeed, the particular forms of opacity that poetry is apt to produce are the ‘the mark of the poetic’, its distinguishing feature and that upon which a definition, such as poetry will admit of, can (...) be constructed. The chapter identifies various forms of poetic opacity and explains their interrelation and aesthetic significance. The chapter concludes by drawing a striking analogy between our experience of poetic opacity and Richard Wollheim’s notion of the ‘twofoldness’ of representational painting. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the debate regarding the semantic type of singular referential names. According to one view, known as referentialism, names rigidly designate individuals (Kripke 1972, Abbott 2002, Leckie 2013, Jeshion 2015, Schoubye 2017). According to another view, known as predicativism, names designate properties of individuals (Burge 1973, Geurts 1997, Bach 2002, Elbourne 2005, Matushansky 2008, Fara 2015). Most predicativist accounts claim that bare names in English occur with a phonologically null determiner, a proposal that is based on (...) languages like Greek where names require a determiner in argument position. Novel data from both English and Greek show that names can be nonrigid designators under modal operators ("Aristotle may teach Socrates") and bound variables under quantifiers ("in every set of twins, Helen is a musician"), challenging referentialism. As for rigidity, one possible source of this phenomenon is the proprial article, a name-specific determiner found in Catalan and other languages that may be null in English and homophonous with the definite article in Greek (Ghomeshi and Massam 2009, Muñoz 2019, Izumi and Erickson 2021). While much further research is needed, the data suggest that the proper analysis of names is grounded in predicativism rather than referentialism. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

In Effective Causal Structural Realism (ECSR) [9], we identified causally emergent macroscopic structures as philosophy’s Universals. Universals (Structural Types) are objectively real difference-makers due to being Formal Causes: successful loci of dynamically-maintained functional organization that constrain and are constituted by microstates. Micro-states (Tokens, Realizers, or Particulars) are objectively real due to being Material or Efficient Causes: they constitute the dynamical engine (Hamiltonian) that makes macro-structures possible. The present paper elucidates a physical asymmetry that drives this bifurcation: Structural Opacity. Complex (...) physical systems exhibit one-way structure: forward evolution from micro-states to macro-observables is tractable, while inversion—recovering micro-histories from macro-states—is not. This asymmetry is the reason macroscopic structures are metastable: where opacity obtains, it renders the micro-scale causally recessive for any embedded system, making macro-variables the best accessible causal handles. The paper catalogues the physical mechanisms that generate opacity—thermodynamic irreversibility, decoherence, chaotic sensitivity, and dynamical scrambling—and argues that their convergent consequence for causation and emergence is best understood through the formal lens of finite-capacity channels filtering information between scales. (shrink)

We study the structure of families of theories in the language of arithmetic extended to allow these families to refer to one another and to themselves. If a theory contains schemata expressing its own truth and expressing a specific Turing index for itself, and contains some other mild axioms, then that theory is untrue. We exhibit some families of true self-referential theories that barely avoid this forbidden pattern.

Abstract (English) — This paper examines the role of opacity in the thought of Bernard Williams and Enrique Dussel, and develops a philosophical method oriented toward non-totalization. In Williams’s ethics, opacity marks the internal limits of moral justification: the individual cannot and should not make all aspects of their ethical life transparent to others or to themselves. Integrity, for Williams, resides not in public coherence but in the lived coherence of one’s commitments, which remain partially inarticulable. In contrast, (...) Dussel identifies opacity at the structural level—as the condition of exteriority that totalizing systems must exclude in order to sustain their coherence. Through his concept of analectics, Dussel maintains that this exclusion is not accidental but constitutive: the Other is not simply marginalized, but rendered epistemically invisible. By placing these two accounts into dialogue, the paper argues that opacity should be treated not as a failure of knowledge or clarity, but as a methodological principle. This principle finds further support in recursive systems, where self-reference generates non-coincidence from within. The resulting framework affirms opacity as a condition of ethical, structural, and conceptual integrity. Rather than seeking philosophical totality, the method outlined here sustains the limits of systems as an active site of reflection. Opacity, in this sense, becomes not what philosophy must overcome, but what it must think with. -/- Resumen (Español) — Este artículo examina el papel de la opacidad en el pensamiento de Bernard Williams y Enrique Dussel, y desarrolla un método filosófico orientado hacia la no-totalización. En la ética de Williams, la opacidad marca los límites internos de la justificación moral: el individuo no puede ni debe hacer completamente transparentes todos los aspectos de su vida ética, ni para los demás ni para sí mismo. La integridad, según Williams, no reside en la coherencia pública, sino en la coherencia vivida de los propios compromisos, que permanecen en parte inarticulables. En contraste, Dussel identifica la opacidad en un nivel estructural, como la condición de exterioridad que los sistemas totalizantes deben excluir para sostener su coherencia. A través de su concepto de analéctica, Dussel sostiene que esta exclusión no es accidental sino constitutiva: el Otro no es simplemente marginado, sino hecho epistemológicamente invisible. Al poner en diálogo estas dos concepciones, el artículo argumenta que la opacidad debe entenderse no como un fallo del conocimiento o de la claridad, sino como un principio metodológico. Este principio recibe apoyo adicional en sistemas recursivos, donde la autorreferencia genera no coincidencia desde dentro. El marco resultante afirma la opacidad como una condición de integridad ética, estructural y conceptual. En lugar de buscar la totalidad filosófica, el método aquí propuesto sostiene los límites de los sistemas como un sitio activo de reflexión. La opacidad, en este sentido, no es lo que la filosofía debe superar, sino aquello con lo que debe pensar. (shrink)

Scholars have so far developed five different approaches to studying language: the referential, social, informational, semantic-pragmatic, and evolutionary approach. These approaches are associated with varying schools of thought and different academic disciplines as they developed within intellectual history. The referential approach to language originated in ancient philosophies. The social approach to language was formulated during modernity. From the 19th century onward, these approaches were followed by the informational approach to language that developed in conjunction with the rise of (...) the techno-sciences and mass communication systems; and the semantic-pragmatic approach to language which was an outgrowth of academic disciplines including linguistics, anthropology, sociology, the cognitive sciences, and analytical and continental philosophy. Contemporary language studies continue many of these research lines but surpass the scope of the older approaches by not only including but prioritizing an evolutionary approach to language. This entry briefly reviews the central tenets of these approaches and explains why language is best understood as an evolved form of community communication. (shrink)

Kant’s moral philosophy both enjoins the acquisition of self-knowledge as a duty, and precludes certain forms of its acquisition via what has become known as the Opacity Thesis. This article looks at several recent attempts to solve this difficulty and argues that they are inadequate. I argue instead that the Opacity Thesis rules out only the knowledge that one has acted from genuine moral principles, but does not apply in cases of moral failure. The duty of moral self-knowledge (...) applies therefore only to one’s awareness of one’s status as a moral being and to the knowledge of one’s moral failings, both in particular actions and one’s overall character failings, one’s vices. This kind of knowledge is morally salutary as an aid to discovering one’s individual moral weakness as well as the subjective ends for which one acts, and in this way for taking up the morally required end of treating human beings as human beings. In this way, moral self-knowledge can be understood as a necessary element of moral improvement, and I conclude by suggesting several ways to understand it thereby as genuinely primary among the duties to oneself. (shrink)

This paper looks at the debates between internalism and externalism in mind and epistemology. In each realm, internalists face what we call 'The Connection Problem', while externalists face what we call 'The Problem of Opacity'. We offer an integrated account of thought content and epistemic warrant that overcomes the problems. We then apply the framework to debates between internalists and externalists in metaethics.

We explore the view that Frege's puzzle is a source of straightforward counterexamples to Leibniz's law. Taking this seriously requires us to revise the classical logic of quantifiers and identity; we work out the options, in the context of higher-order logic. The logics we arrive at provide the resources for a straightforward semantics of attitude reports that is consistent with the Millian thesis that the meaning of a name is just the thing it stands for. We provide models to show (...) that some of these logics are non-degenerate. (shrink)

This essay develops Referential Deflationism, an eliminativist theory that argues that "consciousness" is a name given to a required but ontologically empty reference point that emerges purely from the structure of cybernetic machines. I will argue: (1) Cognition requires temporal extension and memory-scaffolding, eliminating any phenomenal instant. (2) Perceptions and thoughts aren't separate ontological categories, but identical processes. (3) Complex cognition requires a reference point that is computationally necessary but ontologically empty, analogous to a coordinate origin. (4) The self (...) is a contingently chosen reference, selected for stability, availability, and utility, not metaphysical necessity. (5) Several anti-physicalist arguments (Mary's Room, Zombies) can be answered within this framework. The intuition of the conscious self is undeniable and is preserved as an output of meta-self-modelling, not as evidence of phenomenal character. If the argument holds, consciousness becomes a structural feature of self-modelling systems and there is no phenomenon requiring explanation. (shrink)

While Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) can perform a wide range of tasks at human or greater-than-human level of competence, they are also notoriously opaque. This paper aims to shed light on both the specific nature of this opacity and what it would take to fully or partially remove it. We begin by drawing a clarificatory distinction between two basic dimensions of opacity of complex systems – internal and relational – and explain how various kinds of opacity invoked (...) in recent discussions of DNNs can be understood in terms of these basic dimensions. We then discuss the prospects of removing opacity from DNNs following the methods of two subfields of research in AI – mechanistic interpretability and explainable artificial intelligence (XAI). We finish with a critical discussion of the relevance of what Sullivan (2022a) calls ‘link uncertainty’. (shrink)

Revealed preference theory holds that an agent's choices reveal her welfare-relevant preferences: if she chooses A over B, she prefers A, and satisfying that preference contributes to her welfare. This paper argues that the inference from choice to welfare-relevant preference systematically collapses under two structural conditions that are independent of each other and of standard psychological biases. The first is teleological opacity: the structural disconnection between chosen means and realised ends in complex social systems, produced not by epistemic limitation (...) but by the ontological indeterminacy of outcomes that depend on future choices not yet made. The second is Determinate Preference Failure (DPF): the threshold condition below which the evaluative architecture required for autonomous preference formation is destroyed, rendering the inference from behaviour to preference normatively abusive rather than merely inaccurate. The paper introduces the Magic Machine thought experiment to generate the Counterfactual Preference Stability (CPS) criterion — a choice reveals a preference only if it would survive full outcome transparency — and develops the Agency Functioning Threshold (AFT) as the operationalisable marker of DPF, with three measurable population proxies. It responds to three principal objections: the objection that CPS is too strong a criterion, the objection that ontological opacity cannot be distinguished from epistemic uncertainty, and the objection that DPF is merely a severe form of adaptive preference or coercion. The institutional implication is the Lexical Shield — three unconditional guarantees (income, housing, capability restoration) that constitute the precondition for revealed preference theory's categories to have normative application in labour markets. Empirical evidence from guaranteed income trials supports the feasibility of this institutional response. Keywords: revealed preference theory; teleological opacity; Determinate Preference Failure; Counterfactual Preference Stability; Agency Functioning Threshold; Lexical Shield; welfare economics; normative preference; choice theory; labour markets; basic income . (shrink)

Many jurisdictions prohibit or severely restrict the use of evidence about a defendant’s character to prove legal culpability. Situationists, who argue that conduct is largely determined by situational features rather than by character, can easily defend this prohibition. According to situationism, character evidence is misleading or paltry. -/- Proscriptions on character evidence seem harder to justify, however, on virtue ethical accounts. It appears that excluding character evidence either denies the centrality of character for explaining conduct—the situationist position—or omits probative evidence. (...) Situationism is, after all, presented as antithetical to virtue ethics. -/- This essay provides a virtue ethical defense of character evidence exclusion rules. We show that existing virtue ethical rebuttals to situationism themselves support prohibitions on character evidence; even if behavior arises from stable character traits, character evidence should be prohibited. In building our case, we provide a taxonomy of kinds of character judgment and reconcile the ubiquity and reasonableness of character judgments in ordinary life with the epistemic legitimacy of character evidence prohibitions in law. (shrink)

In The Moral Problem, Smith defended an analysis of moral judgments based on a number of platitudes about morality. The platitudes are supposed to constitute conceptual constraints which an analysis of moral terms must capture “on pain of not being an analysis of moral terms at all”. This paper discusses this philosophical methodology in light of the fact that the propositions identified as platitudes are not obvious truths – they are propositions we can be uncertain about. This, we argue, is (...) a kind of fundamental philosophical uncertainty, and we develop an account of fundamental uncertainty (for both philosophical and other issues). The key to understand such uncertainty, on our view, is conceptual opacity – i.e., that the content and reference of concepts is not necessarily transparent to competent concept users. We argue that Smith’s own view of conceptual analysis in TMP provides one plausible explanation of fundamental uncertainty. However, we also argue that another potential explanation is conceptual indeterminacy. If some fundamental philosophical uncertainties are best explained in this way, the implication is that there is no determinately correct analysis of the target terms and concepts. (shrink)

This article provides a comprehensive conceptual analysis of information. It begins with a folk notion that information is a tripartite phenomenon: information is something carried by signals about something for some use. This suggests that information has three main aspects: structural, referential, and normative. I analyze the individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for defining these aspects of information and consider formal theories relating to each aspect as well. The analysis reveals that structural, referential, and normative aspects of (...) information are hierarchically nested and that the normative depends on the referential, which in turn depends on the structural. (shrink)

This book proposes a novel theory of truth and falsity. It argues that truth is a form of reference and falsity is a form of reference failure. -/- Most of the philosophical literature on truth concentrates on certain ontological and epistemic problems. This book focuses instead on language. By utilizing the Fregean idea that sentences are singular referring expressions, the author develops novel connections between the philosophical study of truth and falsity and the huge literature in in the philosophy of (...) language on the notion of reference. The first part of the book constructs the author’s theory and argues for it in length. Part II addresses the ways in which the theory relates to, and is different from, some of the basic theories of truth. Part III takes up how to account for the truth of sentences with logical operators and quantifiers. Finally, Part IV discusses the applications and implications of the theory for longstanding problems in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology. -/- A Referential Theory of Truth and Falsity will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and linguistics. -/- . (shrink)

This paper presents the Self-Referential Theory of Conscious Differentiation (TOCR 4.0), an ontological and quantitative framework that describes phenomenal presence as a measurable density of self-referential distinctions. We introduce a composite metric — Phenomenal Density D(S,t) — that integrates integration (I), reflexivity (R), differentiation (Δ), autonomy (A), and the rate of difference renewal (V), while accounting for dependence (C), internal tension (N), and the thermodynamic cost of maintaining distinctions (E_fix). The formula reads:D(S,t) = (I × R × Δ (...) × A × V) / (C + N + E_fix)We argue that this metric operationalizes a bridge between phenomenology, cognitive neuroscience, and contemporary physics (notably macroscopic quantum coherence), and we provide theoretical rationales, operational suggestions for measurement, comparisons to existing theories (IIT, Global Workspace, Predictive Processing), and testable predictions. The goal is a compact, rigorous ontological account enabling empirical work and interdisciplinary dialogue. (shrink)

Opacity – or the lack of transparency - impacts patients’ ability to participate in and contribute to decision-making. This contribution examines how opacity affects patient engagement in the context of oral potentially malignant disorders. The discussion focuses on three key areas: the effects of unclear disease classifications on patient perceptions of their health; the ways in which ambiguous healthcare pathways create barriers for both patients and providers; and the broader impact of opacity on patient autonomy. The conclusion (...) explores strategies to reduce or mitigate these challenges, including fostering epistemic networks for patients and healthcare providers and embracing the value of humility in care work. (shrink)

This paper explores the structural issues at the boundary of perception, cognition, and logic, developing a systematic analysis from fundamental thinking logic. It constructs a system of infinite recursion and self-reference, balancing absolute freedom of thought with rationality and logical consistency. Rather than solving specific problems or proposing fixed viewpoints, the paper seeks to uncover the limitations of habitual thinking, promoting cognitive renewal through continuous collapse and reconstruction. This leads to an infinitely self-referential meta-reflection, where both the problems and (...) the paper's content are ensnared in a self-referential system, subject to ongoing update and dissolution. (shrink)

Buchanan (2014) argues for a Gricean solution to well-known counterexamples to direct reference theories of content. Peet (2016) develops a way to change the counterexample so that it seems to speak against Buchanan’s own proposal. I argue that both theorists fail to notice a significant distinction between the kinds of cases at issue. Those appearing to count against direct reference theory must be described such that speakers have false beliefs about the identity of the object to which they intend to (...) refer, beliefs that appear relevant to the determination of what constitutes communicative success. This suggests, further, that cases of this sort do not provide a basis for robust generalizations about singular reference. (shrink)

Carruthers argues that knowledge of our own propositional attitudes is achieved by the same mechanism used to attain knowledge of other people's minds. This seems incompatible with "privileged access"---the idea that we have more reliable beliefs about our own mental states, regardless of the mechanism. At one point Carruthers seems to suggest he may be able to maintain privileged access, because we have additional sensory information in our own case. We raise a number of worries for this suggestion, concluding that (...) Carruthers's new theory cannot clearly preserve the superior reliability of our beliefs about our own attitudes. (shrink)

Recent philosophy of memory tends to treat confabulation as a distinctive type of representational error, marked by reference failure, often via direct analogy with the traditional conception of sensory hallucination. I argue that this model misrepresents the phenomenon. Drawing on the empirical possibility of referential confabulation—wherein confabulators mnemically refer to events in their past—I argue that mnemic reference and genuine remembering come apart. This, in particular, challenges causalist theories for which one element—appropriate causation—purports to secure reference and to separate (...) genuine remembering from confabulation. Acknowledging referential confabulation requires causalists to complicate their story in a way that has implications on what remembering is. More generally, referential confabulation prompts a broader rethinking of memory error debates. Rather than being a distinctive type of content-level error, confabulation is better characterised as a processing malfunction: a breakdown in strategic retrieval and monitoring, but not necessarily in referential success. Appreciating this calls us to aim at a more nuanced conception of remembering and its frailties. (shrink)

Self-referential logical systems can be complete yet underdetermined, sustaining multiple internally consistent solutions when constraints don’t fix uniqueness. This note analyzes a seven-portal puzzle whose inscriptions speak about which portals are safe, under the global rule that exactly three inscriptions are true and exactly three portals lead to the center. A brute-force formulation with classical logic yields six distinct models satisfying both sums, with no invariant safe portal. I argue that injecting a single meta-constraint—formally, an XOR between two dependent (...) inscriptions—collapses the solution space to a unique, stable configuration (Portal 4). I call this the Minimal-Information Closure Principle (MICP): one external bit of information can stabilize a self-referential universe, echoing Gödel/Tarski insights and aligning with Shannon-style information closure. The result clarifies how meta-level intervention converts a Gödelian micro-universe from a multiverse of admissible states into a determinate world, offering a compact case study in logical underdetermination and minimal constraint resolution. (shrink)

Episodic memory has a distinctive phenomenology. One way to capture what is distinctive about it is by using the notion of mental time travel: When we remember some fact episodically, we mentally travel to the moment at which we experienced it in the past. This way of distinguishing episodic memory from semantic memory calls for an explanation of what the experience of mental time travel is. In this paper, I suggest that a certain view about the content of memories can (...) shed some light on the experience of mental time travel. This is the view that, when a subject remembers some fact episodically, their memory represents itself as coming from a perception of that fact. I propose that the experience of mental time travel in memory is the experience of representing one of the elements in this complex content, namely, the past perceptual experience of the remembered fact. In defence of this proposal, I offer two considerations. Firstly, the proposal is consistent with the idea that memories enjoy a temporal phenomenology (specifically, a feeling of pastness). Secondly, the proposal is consistent with the possibility that some of our other cognitive capacities might yield an experience of mental time travel which can be oriented towards the future. I argue that the received conception of mental time travel is in tension with those two ideas. (shrink)