In this thesis I advance an interpretation of the statement, famously attributed to Epicurus by several ancient sources, 'all perceptions ( aistheseis or phantosia) are true (alethes).' The statement earned Epicurus and his followers the scorn and ridicule of prominent non-Epicurean figures, including Cicero and Plutarch, and has remained the subject of scholarly controversy. The interpretation I advance in this thesis is oriented around the foundational role of perceptions in Epicurean epistemology. Though they are themselves irrational (alogos), perceptions are both the basis of all reasoning and criteria of truth in Epicurus' system. To show how all perceptions are true in this role, I analyse the causal mechanism of perception and show that the content of each perception is basic and irreducible: no perception can contradict another and all are equally reliable as evidence. Thus, on my reading, the truth of all perceptions refers to their reliability in Epicurus' method.

Cette thèse vise à montrer l'originalité philosophique d'Edith Stein en explorant la manière dont elle aborde le problème de la vérité transcendantale. Non satisfaite du paradigme épistémologique de la vérité, qui accentue trop l'ordre noétique (structures a priori de la conscience ou du sujet) et auquel la modernité souscrit volontiers, Edith Stein pense sur de nouveaux frais le concept de vérité transcendantale. L'originalité consiste en ce que sa solution au problème de la vérité constitue une refonte des acquis philosophiques médiévaux et contemporains. La vérité est toujours déjà constituée dans la coordination originaire («Zuordnung») entre l'esprit et de l'être. Autrement dit, la vérité fait partie de la facture du monde et engage obligatoirement l'existence et la pensée humaines. Le monde dans lequel nous déployons nos existences est fabriqué de telle sorte que l'esprit est ouvert sur l'intelligible et les êtres qui peuplent notre monde n'existent que pour faire comprendre quelque chose à l'intelligence. Ce quelque chose qui s'offre à la compréhension, c'est l'être. Aucun accord entre l'esprit et l'être, que ce soit sous la forme d'intentionnalité ou de compréhension, n'est possible si l'être ne se manifeste pas lui-même à l'esprit. Les étants portent en eux-mêmes une aptitude à être expérimentées comme «vrais». C'est cette aptitude que l'on vise avec le concept de vérité ontologique. Mais le concept de vérité transcendantale va plus loin que la vérité ontologique. La vérité transcendantale vise en effet l'accord fondamental et fondationnel toujours déjà donné entre l'ordre noétique et l'ordre ontique, entre l'esprit et l'être.

<p> Presentism is the view that, with the possible exception of things outside of time, everything that exists, exists at the present time. It is contrasted with eternalism, the view that everything which ever did exist or ever will exist, exists. Some philosophers argue that presentism and eternalism are not really substantive, opposed metaphysical theses. I consider some attempts in the literature to rebut this skeptical position, and argue that they are unsatisfactory. Then I make my own case for the conclusion that presentism and eternalism are substantive metaphysical theses by drawing a distinction between two ways of talking about what exists with respect to a time, and imagining a hypothetical analogous debate about the nature of space.</p><p>

My research centers on analytic pragmatist approaches to intentionality. One goal that defenders of such approaches set for themselves is to be able to provide a naturalistically sound account of intentionality without being pejoratively scientistic. Many critics argue that this is an unattainable goal, and I begin my dissertation by framing in neutral terms what I take to be the core of these criticsâ objection. I call this the Pincer Objection, and while surveying the works of four prominent analytic pragmatistsâDonald Davidson, John McDowell, Huw Price, and Robert BrandomâI argue that all of them fall prey to the Pincer Objection. The reason they fall prey to this objection is because within their semantic theories they give explanatory priority to the semantic properties of propositions (as opposed to those of concepts or inferences). I argue that, as an analytic pragmatist, I should instead prioritize the semantic properties of inferences, and that once I do so I am faced with the question: How are materially valid inferences possible? Finally, I argue that if I can provide an answer to this question, then I can successfully address the Pincer Objection. In this manner, my dissertation is not directed towards answering this question, but instead towards establishing the naturalistic credentials of accounts of intentionality that take this question seriously.

<p> Horgan &amp; Potr&ccaron; introduced a view they call &lsquo;blobjectivism&rsquo;, which combines three kinds of theses. First is the metaphysical thesis that the world is the only concrete particular. Second is the ontological thesis that there exist very few mind-independent entities in the world. Third is the alethic thesis that truth is correspondence to the world. Regarding this third thesis, blobjectivists assert that there are two types of correspondence: direct and indirect correspondence. Unlike direct correspondence, indirect correspondence does not require correspondence to mind-independent entities in the world. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether indirect correspondence standards are genuine correspondence standards for truth. This thesis strengthens and unifies the blobjectivist framework by arguing that indirect correspondence is a genuine correspondence standard for truth because it always has an obtaining state of affairs as its relatum and any true statement involving indirect correspondence can be paraphrased by a true statement involving direct correspondence. </p>

Aristotle thinks all our knowledge comes from perception. Yet he doesn't say much about the sense in which our knowledge might be based on or derived from the things we perceive. So what exactly does perception contribute to the more advanced cognitive states that make up our intellectual lives, and how should we understand the nature of its contribution? I argue that perception contributes to these more advanced states by putting us in touch with particular things in a way that's responsive to the universals governing their behavior: perceptible particulars possess certain features because they instantiate certain universals, and perception allows us to discriminate these features and experience them as action-guiding aspects of our environment. So for instance, a patient might exhibit feverish features because she instantiates malarial disease, and a doctor might perceive these feverish features and experience them as soliciting some course of action---as soliciting that the patient be leeched, say. I explain how perception, so understood, can serve as a basis for the development of a perceptually driven form of practical knowledge (ἐμπειρία); roughly, the form of knowledge possessed by a doctor who knows how to cure a range of patients but could not explain why or how her treatments work. I then explain how such practical knowledge can itself serve as a basis for the theoretically sophisticated grasp of universals Aristotle takes as his cognitive ideal. / Philosophy

A meaningful life involves loving people and valuing things. We typically love our spouses, parents, children, siblings, and friends, and value our projects, activities, causes, and ideals. In virtue of such attachments, a meaningful life is also susceptible to regret of a distinctively personal kind. Our regrets about the misfortunes and harms that befall the people we love and the things we value reflect the extent to which we are implicated in the fate of those people and things, the extent, that is, to which our attachments determine who we are. What are the reasons to which we respond in loving a particular person or valuing a particular thing, and how do these reasons explain personal regret as well as our conception of who we are? This is the question this dissertation aims to address. The primary thesis of the first chapter is that we have reasons to love particular individuals as such. The primary thesis of the second chapter is that different individuals rationally value different objects in different ways, while one and the same object can be rationally valued very much by some and not at all by others. The primary thesis of the third chapter is that our present attachments give us reason to regret or affirm the past. All three chapters make use of the distinction between reasons of attachment and reasons for attachment. Reasons of attachment are the reasons a person takes him- or herself to have with regard to the individual or object he or she loves or values, and reasons for attachment justify or warrant a person’s attachments as well as enable the person’s reasons of attachment. For example, the fact that a person is kind might be a reason for being his or her friend, but the fact that the person is free this afternoon might be a reason of friendship to spend this afternoon with him or her. Alternatively, the fact that Ness-Ziona is my hometown may be a reason for valuing it, but the fact that the orchards of my childhood have been replaced by suburban neighborhoods is a reason of valuing to lament the change Ness-Ziona has undergone. In addition to the three, positive theses, all three chapters discuss ways in which our reasons for and against attachment might clash with our reasons of attachment with regard to a particular person or object. While reasons for attachment and reasons of attachment often complement each other, they might also pull in opposite directions. When we have most reason to let go of the person we love, of the place that is our home, or of the vocation we cherish, and letting go means failing or abandoning this person, place, or vocation, then the two kinds of reasons¬ may set us against ourselves, as it were. Thus, this dissertation aims to shed light on the rationality of a meaningful life, but it also accounts for inevitable crises of meaning, without which a meaningful life would not be such a tremendous achievement. / Philosophy

Kant’s Science of the Moral World and Moral Objectivity Abstract Critics of Kant's moral philosophy often object that it cannot account for moral requirements that are both genuinely objective and contentful. Notwithstanding the long history of this dispute, Kantians have been unable to put these objections to rest. I argue that we can answer these objections and fully understand Kantian moral objectivity only if we consider Kant’s moral philosophy in light of his methodological and architectonic concerns. My dissertation takes up this task by providing a new account of Kant’s conception of moral theory as a philosophical science: Kant’s moral philosophy, I argue, appropriates the central features of the then revolutionary method of Newtonian natural science for the investigation of practical cognition. Just as Newtonian science begins with a priori (largely mathematical) principles and then gradually "comes down to" particular concrete physics, so too Kantian moral philosophy begins with general a priori moral principles that then gradually translate into a system of particular requirements. The objectivity of the content of our practical thought develops as the background conditions of moral deliberation become progressively more inter-subjectively justifiable. This progress is possible only through co-deliberation and collective action demanded by the duty to make morality fully efficacious in our shared social world, that is, the duty to promote the highest good. My account highlights the attractiveness of Kant’s conception of the relationship between a priori and empirical aspects of practical thought, between theory and practice, and enables its systematic defense against objections by later German Idealists, particularly by Hegel. I argue that Hegel’s polemic against Kant's account of morality is fundamentally a disagreement about the nature of philosophical science and its method, and adjudicating between their views requires adjudicating the methodological dispute itself. I offer a systematic assessment of the methodological grounds of Hegel’s approach and of his critique of Kant’s moral philosophy. I argue that (1) Hegel’s approach does not, on the whole, present a viable alternative to Kant’s moral theory and (2) Hegel’s challenge can be met, but only by appealing to developmental or genetic aspects of Kant’s conception of moral objectivity grounded in his views on the proper method and form of a philosophical science. I show that these aspects of Kant’s thought, generally overlooked by commentators and Kantian theorists, are indispensable to his moral theory and provide a basis for a fruitful engagement with contemporary issues in moral philosophy, such as questions about the nature and role of imperfect duties. / Philosophy

There has been much recent work in philosophy of science on idealization – the way inaccurate representations can be used to understand a target system. My dissertation concerns a particular sort of idealization that is familiar but often overlooked: rational reconstruction. Rational reconstructions are “cleaned-up” – more coherent and accurate – versions of an individual’s or a group’s attitudes. They are the kind of idealized model that facilitates a crucial aim of the interpretive sciences, the understanding of another’s point of view. I provide an account of rational reconstruction and argue that such an account can help us make sense of many intellectual projects in the humanities and the interpretive social sciences. I then argue that this account can also be used to resolve a problem in democratic theory: how deliberative institutions can facilitate understanding and discursive engagement with “inchoate” points of view. A theory of rational reconstruction thus elucidates an important way that the humanities and interpretive social sciences can be politically significant. / Philosophy

My thesis offers an account of the phenomenon of bodily alienation. Bodily alienation marks the failure to realize oneself in one’s bodily activities. I argue that realizing oneself in one’s bodily activities requires the pursuit of bodily activities for their own sake—not for the appearance they produce, and the ability to deal skillfully with one’s environment. I characterize bodily alienation by examining three cases concerning gender and race: (i) the tendency, inflected by gender norms, to identify with certain fetishized body parts and to modify one’s body accordingly, (ii) the physical incapacitation that the gaze of a member of a dominant group (e.g., a white person’s gaze) can provoke in a member of an oppressed group (e.g., a person of color), and (iii) the personal transformations that members of non-oppressed groups achieve when they reform the bodily habits that alienate members of oppressed groups. I vindicate the use of the concept of bodily alienation for ontologies of the body that aim to ground social criticism. I explain that the concept of bodily alienation can accomplish this task because it is descriptive and normative. Applying this concept both describes someone’s relation to her body and judges that relation as defective. Describing social practices as alienating entails that things are not as they should be. And that raises the question of how they should be changed. My use of the concept of bodily alienation for a critical project concerning gender, race, and the body sets this project apart from other forms of social critique, such as social constructionism. Social constructionists typically make descriptive claims about the relative naturalness of a state of affairs and then make the case for changing it. For example, feminist social constructionist critiques move from the claim that gender differences are not merely a matter of biology and can be reformed, to arguments about why they should be reformed. My account avoids this two-step argumentative strategy. The concept of bodily alienation simultaneously uncovers and evaluates phenomena, while tying them to a conception of human flourishing as embodied. / Philosophy