ABSTRACTTo measure is to err. Serving both numeric and non‐numeric measurement, the language of measurement refers to margins of error, within which measurement reports locate their measurements. Such reports and reasoning from them invoke what is known and what is known to be known about error‐strewn measurement to derive and contrast the implicatures of bare and comparative measures.

ABSTRACTWe can use “reason,” with its normative sense, as both a count noun (“there is a reason for her to Φ”) and a mass noun (“there is plenty of reason for her to Φ”). How are the count and mass senses of “reason” related? Daniel Fogal argues that the mass sense is fundamental: Just as lights are merely those things that give light and anxieties are merely those things that give anxiety, reasons are merely those things that give reason. In this article, I develop an opposing analysis of the mass noun “reason” that puts reasons first. Just as the detail on the Mona Lisa is composed of particular details (brushstrokes and colors) and the crime in L.A. is composed of particular crimes (pickpocketings and speeding offenses), so the reason for you to go to the dentist is composed of your reasons to go. Reasons stand to reason as parts to a whole. Such a picture makes reasons fundamental once more, but it has a cost of entry. In order to accommodate the behavior of “reason” in comparative constructions, you need to abandon the idea that reasons are facts we can count up. On the contrary: They're not facts, and you can't count them.

ABSTRACTFifty years ago, Zwicky demonstrated the slur‐neutral counterpart vocative divergence thesis (SNCVD):Slurs occur freely as vocatives. Neutral counterparts do not. In this article, I craft a novel problem for theories of slurs. The Vocatives Problem is the challenge to explain the SNCVD. I argue that there are two strong solutions. One construes slurs as encoding non‐expressive pejorative evaluation. Another construes them as expressives, as tools for expressing speaker‐contempt. I advance further rationales for treating slurs as expressives as a best solution. I argue that four alternative accounts, none of which place restrictions on slurs’ semantics, fail to explain SNCVD. Finally, I show how the Vocatives Problem presents a formidable challenge to leading analyses of slurs that explain slurs’ derogatory force exclusively via appeal to pragmatics, socio‐linguistic rules like prohibitions, or articulations.

Abstract In his unpublished 1979 Lectures on the Philosophy of Mind, Saul Kripke offers a knowledge argument against materialism focusing on deaf people who lack knowledge of auditory experience. Kripke's argument is a precursor of Frank Jackson's better‐known knowledge argument against materialism (1982). The paper sets out Kripke's argument, brings out its interest and philosophical importance, and explores some similarities and differences between Kripke's knowledge argument and Jackson's.

Abstract David Lewis—famously—never tasted vegemite. Did he have any knowledge of what it's like to taste vegemite? Most say ‘no’; I say ‘yes’. I argue that knowledge of what it's like varies along a spectrum from more exact to more approximate, and that phenomenal concepts vary along a spectrum in how precisely they characterize what it's like to undergo their target experiences. This degreed picture contrasts with the standard all‐or‐nothing picture, where phenomenal concepts and phenomenal knowledge lack any such degreed structure. I motivate the degreed picture by appeal to (1) limits in epistemic abilities such as recognition, imagination, and inference, and (2) the semantics of ‘knows what it's like’ expressions. I argue that approximate phenomenal knowledge cannot be explained merely via determinable or vague phenomenal concepts. I develop a framework for systematizing approximate knowledge of phenomenal character. And I explain how my view challenges some standard assumptions about the acquisition conditions, requirements for mastery, and referential mechanisms of phenomenal concepts.

Philosophical PerspectivesEarly View ORIGINAL ARTICLE Modal Pluralism and Higher-Order Logic Justin Clarke-Doane, Corresponding Author Justin Clarke-Doane [email protected] Columbia University & Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Correspondence Justin Clarke-Doane, Columbia University & Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Email: [email protected] William McCarthy, Columbia University. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorWilliam McCarthy, Corresponding Author William McCarthy [email protected] Columbia University Correspondence Justin Clarke-Doane, Columbia University & Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Email: [email protected] William McCarthy, Columbia University. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author Justin Clarke-Doane, Corresponding Author Justin Clarke-Doane [email protected] Columbia University & Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Correspondence Justin Clarke-Doane, Columbia University & Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Email: [email protected] William McCarthy, Columbia University. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorWilliam McCarthy, Corresponding Author William McCarthy [email protected] Columbia University Correspondence Justin Clarke-Doane, Columbia University & Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Email: [email protected] William McCarthy, Columbia University. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author First published: 02 March 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12165Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue RelatedInformation

Abstract The Principle of Indifference (POI) is a rule for rationally assigning precise degrees of confidence to possibilities among which we have no reason to discriminate. Despite criticism of the principle stemming from Bertrand's paradox, many have recently come to the defense of POI or adopted some restricted version of that principle, especially in discussions of self‐locating belief. I argue that POI in both unrestricted and restricted forms is untenable, and that arguments for the more restricted principles are hostage to problems similar to those that bedevil arguments for traditional POI.

solipsism, skepticism, social ontology, Turing machine, sentience, external world skepticism, simulation hypothesis, faux-folk, meta-epistemology There are almost 8 billion human beings on the planet. Some of these I know personally. They are my colleagues, neighbors, friends, and family members. Others are distant strangers, most of whom I will never meet. I take it for granted that all of these beings are, like myself, sentient. I presume that they have opinions and aspirations, hopes and dreads; that they experience intense pleasures and sharp pains, along with dull aches, surprise, simple satisfaction, ennui, and deep longing; that they can reflect, contemplate, learn, interpret the world and themselves, and act on those interpretations. Certainly, I do not think my fellow humans are mere automata, mindless entities that somehow manage to give off the appearance of sentience. In fact, psychologically speaking, it is extraordinarily difficult for me to take seriously, even as a remote possibility, that these others might somehow fail to be sentient. Still, I can ask: Do I know that these others are sentient? Do I know that I am not alone in the universe? 1 Epistemological solipsism (sometimes abbreviated to solipsism) is the view that I do not know that other minds exist. One way of motivating this view draws from the possibility that others might appear to be sentient whilst altogether lacking a mental life. On one line of reasoning, if I cannot rule out that this possibility obtains, then I do not know that other minds exist, even if the others around me are in fact sentient. 2 Epistemological solipsism does not enjoy a central place in contemporary philosophical theorizing. 3 The reasons for this are no doubt complex, but I would conjecture that the following is one contributing factor: epistemological solipsism is presumed to be easily refutable, for instance, on broadly abductive grounds. For presumably the best explanation of why others seem to be sentient is that they are sentient. 4 If solipsism can be ruled out this easily, then perhaps solipsism doesn't warrant a central position in philosophical theorizing.

Start with orthodox Bayesianism, whose only (synchronic) constraint on rational credences is that they be coherent. That's remarkably permissive—it licenses unreasonable credences. Bayesians are fond of replying with convergence theorems, but for various reasons, I find them inadequate. So I approve of extra constraints on rational credences. Moreover, orthodox Bayesian decision theory is remarkably permissive about how agents value things. Again, it imposes coherence constraints, but it licenses unreasonable preferences. Now turn to risk attitudes. Which risk attitudes are permissible? Here, orthodox Bayesian decision theory is singularly narrow-minded. It demands risk neutrality: maximising expected utility, rather than some risk-seeking or risk-averse alternative to it. Offhand, this combination of extreme permissiveness about credences and preferences with extreme unpermissiveness about risk attitudes is somewhat surprising. So we need to look at the arguments for risk neutrality—in particular from representation theorems, and from long-run convergence theorems. I find these arguments wanting. Still, there might be extra constraints on rational risk attitudes: analogues of the the extra constraints on rational credences. But I will argue that to the extent these are plausible, they do not privilege risk-neutrality. Indeed, considerations of morality and moral risk undercut such privileging. So we have a reason to be permissive about risk attitudes—even more so than about credences. Hence, we should welcome Lara Buchak's risk-weighted expected utility theory. But in some respects, her theory is not permissive enough. Moreover, even she thinks that some risk attitudes are unreasonable—in other respects her theory is too permissive. Nevertheless, orthodoxy's rigidity about them should be questioned, and we should be grateful to her for doing so.