The inferential role of I is irreducibly deictic. The inferential roles of singular terms are distinguished by appeal to the different mechanisms required to guarantee co-reference in a knowledge-advancing way. Co-typicality is insufficient for variant terms. Anaphoric structures are insufficient for I and other terms used deictically; they depend on identity-judgements and keeping track. The inferential role of I and other deictic terms is irreducibly deictic: it is by singling out individuals made salient in the (...) extra-sentential environment that their uses contribute systematically to what entails what. (shrink)

Although there is a prima facie strong case for a close connection between the meaning and inferential role of certain expressions, this connection seems seriously threatened by the semantic and logical paradoxes which rely on these inferential roles. Some philosophers have drawn radical conclusions from the paradoxes for the theory of meaning in general, and for which sentences in our language are true. I criticize these overreactions, and instead propose to distinguish two conceptions of inferential (...) class='Hi'>role. This distinction is closely tied to two conceptions of deductive logic, and it is the key, I argue, for understanding first the connection between meaning and inferential role, and second what the paradoxes show more generally. (shrink)

This is a critical discussion of Jerry Fodor and Ernie Lepore's "Holism". The paper questions the existence of a slippery slope from some inferential liaisons are constitutive of meaning' to all inferential liaisons are constitutive of meaning'. "Interalia", it defends the existence of an analytic/synthetic distinction.

I propose a version of inferential role theory which says that having a concept is having the disposition to draw most of the inferences based on the stereotypical features associated with this concept. I defend this view against Fodor and Lepore.

Jerry Fodor and Ernie Lepore have argued that inferential roles are not compositional. It is unclear, however, whether the theories at which they aim their objection are obliged to meet the strong compositionality requirement they have in mind. But even if that requirement is accepted, the data they adduce can in fact be derived from an inferential-role theory that meets it. Technically this is trivial, but it raises some interesting objections turning on the issue of the generality (...) of inferential roles. I explain how those objections can be met. Whether Fodor’s and Lepore’s strong compositionality requirement is justified or not, then, inferential-role theories do not have the problem that they claim to have identified. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor and Ernie LePore argue against inferential role semantics on the grounds that either it relies on an analytic/synthetic distinction vulnerable to Quinean objections, or else it leads to a variety of meaning holism frought with absurd consequences. However, the slide from semantic atomism to meaning holism might be prevented by distinctions not affected by Quine's arguments against analyticity; and the absurd consequences Fodor and LePore attribute to meaning holism obtain only on an implausible construal of (...) class='Hi'>inferential roles. (shrink)

According to inferential role semantics, for any given expression to possess a particular meaning one must be disposed to make or, alternatively, acknowledge as correct certain inferential transitions involving it. As Williamson points out, pejoratives such as ‘Boche’ seem to provide a counter-example to IRS. Many speakers are neither disposed to use such expressions nor consider it proper to do so. But it does not follow, as IRS appears to entail, that such speakers do not understand pejoratives (...) or that they lack meaning. In this paper, I examine recent responses to this problem by Boghossian and Brandom and argue that their proposed construal of the kind of inferential rules governing a pejorative such as ‘Boche’ is to be ruled out on the grounds that it is non-conservative. I defend the appeal to conservatism in this instance against criticism and, in doing so, propose an alternative approach to pejoratives on behalf of IRS that resolves the problem Williamson poses. (shrink)

While according to the inferentialists, meaning is always a kind of inferential role, proponents of other approaches to semantics often doubt that actual meanings, as they see them, can be generally reduced to inferential roles. In this paper we propose a formal framework for considering the hypothesis of the.

The point of formalisation is to model various aspects of natural language. Perhaps the main use to which formalisation is put is to model and explain inferential relations between different sentences. Judged solely by this objective, a formalisation is successful in modelling the inferential network of natural language sentences to the extent that it mirrors this network. There is surprisingly little literature on the criteria of good formalisation, and even less on the question of what it is for (...) a formalisation to mirror the inferential network of a natural language or some fragment of it. This paper takes some exploratory steps towards a quantitative account of the main ingredient in the goodness of a formalisation. We introduce and critically examine a mathematical model of how well a formalisation mirrors natural-language inferential relations. (shrink)

Inferential Role Semantics is often criticized for being incompatible with the platitude that words of different speakers can mean the same thing. While many assume that this platitude can be accommodated by understanding sameness of meaning in terms of similarity of meaning, no worked out proposal has ever been produced for Inferential Role Semantics. I rectify this important omission by giving a detailed structural account of meaning similarity in terms of graph theory. I go on to (...) argue that this account has a number of attractive features, prominent among them that it makes sameness of meaning probabilistically determine co-reference. (shrink)

Neural networks have long been used to study linguistic phenomena spanning the domains of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Of these domains, semantics is somewhat unique in that there is little clarity concerning what a model needs to be able to do in order to provide an account of how the meanings of complex linguistic expressions, such as sentences, are understood. We argue that one thing such models need to be able to do is generate predictions about which further sentences (...) are likely to follow from a given sentence; these define the sentence's “inferential role.” We then show that it is possible to train a tree-structured neural network model to generate very simple examples of such inferential roles using the recently released Stanford Natural Language Inference (SNLI) dataset. On an empirical front, we evaluate the performance of this model by reporting entailment prediction accuracies on a set of test sentences not present in the training data. We also report the results of a simple study that compares human plausibility ratings for both human-generated and model-generated entailments for a random selection of sentences in this test set. On a more theoretical front, we argue in favor of a revision to some common assumptions about semantics: understanding a linguistic expression is not only a matter of mapping it onto a representation that somehow constitutes its meaning; rather, understanding a linguistic expression is mainly a matter of being able to draw certain inferences. Inference should accordingly be at the core of any model of semantic cognition. (shrink)

Supervenience is mostly conceived of as a purely philosophical concept. Nevertheless, I will argue, it played an important and very fruitful inferential role in classical genetics. Gregor Mendel assumed that phenotypic traits supervene on underlying factors, and this assumption allowed him to successfully predict and explain the phenotypical regularities he had experimentally discovered. Therefore it is interesting to explicate how we reason about supervenience relations. I will tackle the following two questions. Firstly, can a reliable method (a logic) (...) be found for infenfog supervenience claims from data? Secondly, can a reliable method (a logic) be found to empirically test supervenience claims? I will answer these questions within the framework of the adaptive logics programme. (shrink)

Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic, and homophobic epithets) are bully words with ontological force: they serve to establish and maintain a corrupt social system fuelled by distinctions designed to justify relations of dominance and subordination. No wonder they have occasioned public outcry and legal response. The inferential role analysis developed here helps move us away from thinking of the harms as being located in connotation (representing mere speaker bias) or denotation (holding that the terms fail to refer due (...) to inaccurate descriptive content). The issue is not bad attitudes or referential misfires. An inferential role semantic analysis of derogatory terms shows exactly what is at stake between those who argue that the terms should be eliminated (Absolutists) and those who claim they can be successfully rehabilitated (Reclaimers). The Reclaimer maintains, and the Absolutist denies, that certain contexts can detach the derogatory force from deeply derogatory terms. The article looks at these claims with respect to ‘nigger’ and ‘dyke,’ setting out the inferential role of each term and examining detachability potential. Explaining detachability in terms of linguistic commitments, this article also addresses the issue of whether such terms count as political discourse, and examines the implications of that issue. (shrink)

ABSTRACT My aim in this paper is to present a pluralist thesis about the inferential role of logical constants, which embraces classical, relevant, linear and ordered logic. That is, I defend that a logical constant c has more than one correct inferential role. The thesis depends on a particular interpretation of substructural logics' vocabulary, according to which classical logic captures the literal meaning of logical constants and substructural logics encode a pragmatically enriched sense of those connectives. (...) The paper is divided into four parts: first, I introduce the motivation for the pluralist thesis of the paper; second I introduce the calculus for the different logics endorsed in the pluralist thesis; third, I motivate how the different behaviors of the logical vocabulary of these logics can be pragmatically interpreted, and fourth, I motivate how the different inferential roles that each substructural logic attribute to logical constants can coexist, and how we should reason with a logical constant c given this plurality. (shrink)

Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic, and homophobic epithets) are bully words with ontological force: they serve to establish and maintain a corrupt social system fuelled by distinctions designed to justify relations of dominance and subordination. No wonder they have occasioned public outcry and legal response. The inferential role analysis developed here helps move us away from thinking of the harms as being located in connotation (representing mere speaker bias) or denotation (holding that the terms fail to refer due (...) to inaccurate descriptive content). The issue is not bad attitudes or referential misfires. An inferential role semantic analysis of derogatory terms shows exactly what is at stake between those who argue that the terms should be eliminated (Absolutists) and those who claim they can be successfully rehabilitated (Reclaimers). The Reclaimer maintains, and the Absolutist denies, that certain contexts can detach the derogatory force from deeply derogatory terms. The article looks at these claims with respect to ‘nigger’ and ‘dyke,’ setting out the inferential role of each term and examining detachability potential. Explaining detachability in terms of linguistic commitments, this article also addresses the issue of whether such terms count as political discourse, and examines the implications of that issue. (shrink)

Erratum to: Synthese DOI 10.1007/s11229-015-0705-5In line 3 of footnote 8 on page 4, ‘allow’ should be ‘disallow’.In line 8 of page 5, \ should be \ and \ should be \. Similarly for lines 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 13 and 14 of page 6.The entry in row 20 column 6 of the table on page 5 should be 1 rather than 0.The entry \ in row 30 column 5 of the table on page 5 should be \.In line 27 (...) of page 13, ‘it’ should be ‘them’.Four lines from the end of section 12.3 on page 20, ‘premisses’ should be ‘premiss sets’, and .. (shrink)

Scientific models need to be investigated if they are to provide valuable information about the systems they represent. Surprisingly, the epistemological question of what enables this investigation has hardly been investigated. Even authors who consider the inferential role of models as central, like Hughes or Bueno and Colyvan, content themselves with claiming that models contain mathematical resources that provide inferential power. We claim that these notions require further analysis and argue that mathematical formalisms contribute to this (...) class='Hi'>inferential role. We characterize formalisms, illustrate how they extend our mathematical resources, and highlight how distinct formalisms offer various inferential affordances. (shrink)

The entire development of modern logic is characterized by various forms of confrontation of what has come to be called proof theory with what has earned the label of model theory. For a long time the widely accepted view was that while model theory captures directly what logical formalisms are about, proof theory is merely our technical means of getting some incomplete grip on this; but in recent decades the situation has altered. Not only did proof theory expand into new (...) realms, generalizing the concept of proof in various directions; many philosophers also realized that meaning may be seen as primarily consisting in certain rules rather than in language-world links. However, the possibility of construing meaning as an inferential role is often seen as essentially compromised by the limits of prooftheoretical means. The aim of this paper is to sort out the cluster of problems besetting logical inferentialism by disentangling and clarifying one of them, namely determining the power of various inferential frameworks as measured by that of explicitly semantic ones. (shrink)

We develop a novel solution to the negation version of the Frege-Geach problem by taking up recent insights from the bilateral programme in logic. Bilateralists derive the meaning of negation from a primitive *B-type* inconsistency involving the attitudes of assent and dissent. Some may demand an explanation of this inconsistency in simpler terms, but we argue that bilateralism’s assumptions are no less explanatory than those of *A-type* semantics that only require a single primitive attitude, but must stipulate inconsistency elsewhere. Based (...) on these insights, we develop a version of B-type expressivism called *inferential expressivism*. This is a novel semantic framework that characterises meanings by inferential roles that define which *attitudes* one can *infer* from the use of terms. We apply this framework to normative vocabulary, thereby solving the Frege-Geach problem generally and comprehensively. Our account moreover includes a semantics for epistemic modals, thereby also explaining normative terms under epistemic modals. (shrink)

Communication, when defined as an act intended to affect the psychological state of another individual, demands the use of inference. Either the signaler, the recipient, or both must make leaps of understanding which surpass the semantic information available and draw from pragmatic clues to fully imbue and interpret meaning. While research into human communication and the evolution of language has long been comfortable with mentalistic interpretations of communicative exchanges, including rich attributions of mental state, research into animal communication has balked (...) at theoretical models which describe mentalized cognitive mechanisms. We submit a new theoretical perspective on animal communication: the model of inferential communication. For use when existing proximate models of animal communication are not sufficient to fully explain the complex, flexible, and intentional communication documented in certain species, specifically non-human primates, we present our model as a bridge between shallower, less cognitive descriptions of communicative behavior and the perhaps otherwise inaccessible mentalistic interpretations of communication found in theoretical considerations of human language. Inferential communication is a framework that builds on existing evidence of referentiality, intentionality, and social inference in primates. It allows that they might be capable of applying social inferences to a communicative setting, which could explain some of the cognitive processes that enable the complexity and flexibility of primate communication systems. While historical models of animal communication focus on the means-ends process of behavior and apparent cognitive outcomes, inferential communication invites consideration of the mentalistic processes that must underlie those outcomes. We propose a mentalized approach to questions, investigations, and interpretations of non-human primate communication. We include an overview of both ultimate and proximate models of animal communication, which contextualize the role and utility of our inferential communication model, and provide a detailed breakdown of the possible levels of cognitive complexity which could be investigated using this framework. Finally, we present some possible applications of inferential communication in the field of non-human primate communication and highlight the role it could play in advancing progress toward an increasingly precise understanding of the cognitive capabilities of our closest living relatives. (shrink)

Communication is a multichannel, multiunit process that works on different levels. It is sequential with specific information carriers on a cognitive accessible level, and dynamic for the regulation of relationships at the same time. One function of communication is the broadcasting of internal states that can be assessed by inferential communication.

Tmagists' hold that inferential thinking is built up from combinations of sensory and sensorimotor images in various patterns and modalities, and that the images are a more basic mental and neurophysiological operation than the logical thinking and conceptualization that are built up front them. 'Computationalists' hold just the opposite view — that images result from previous inferential processing which is more basic than the images. Suppose we define inference as the kind of thought process that we actually undergo (...) when we do logical thinking, and not in the trivial sense in which any natural phenomenon which receives an 'input' from another then 'responds' to this 'input'. And suppose we define an 'image ' as any instance of imagining what it would be like to entertain some conscious state which we are not undergoing at the time — as for example when we imagine what it would be like to see something, to ride a roller coaster or to have a headache. I. e., 'images ' can be kinaesthetic and proprioceptive s well as sensory. Then it can be shown that inferential thinking is built up from patterns of images, including importantly the imaging of rhythm patterns corresponding to logical syntax. Furthermore, the acquisition of these inference rules can also be traced to a process of trying to imagine scenarios which might serve as counterexamples to the rules, and this kind of 'imagining ' can also be explained in terms of both sensory and proprioceptive images. The reason for this is twofold: First, even the apparently 'imageless ' concepts used to imagine such scenarios consist in each case of a feeling of preparedness to entertain a pattern of images which would be appropriate to provide a directly or indirectly ostensive definition of the concept in question, and this feeling of preparedness can be sensed proprioceptively. Secondly, a concept, even if it is not experienced as involving imagery, may nonetheless occur as an element of a larger pattern whose rhythm can be imaged. This paper defends an expanded version of the imagist approach, suggesting an important pragmatic role for the proprioceptive sensing of rhythm patterns in the acquisition and use of inference skills. (shrink)

Carnap took the content of a particularsentence or set of sentences to consist in the set ofthe consequences of the sentence or set. This claimequates meaning with inferential role, but itrestricts the inferences to deductive or explicativeones. Here I reject a recent proposal by RobertBrandom, where inductive or ampliative inferences arealso meant to confer contents on expressions. I arguethat if Brandom's inferentialist picture is upheld, andboth explicative and ampliative inferences confermeaning, one consequence of this is that the contentof (...) a sentence is to be read off from our ways ofrationally altering our beliefs. Meaning and contentthen are largely concepts of pragmatics, with no cleartheoretical interest. My critique affects certainaspects of Dummett's meaning-theoretic picture too,and the discussion also links up with the developmentof `dynamic semantics'. (shrink)

This paper aims to propose an inferential and dynamic approach to understanding with models in biology. Understanding plays a central role in the practice of modeling. From its links with the other two central elements of scientific research, experimentation, and explanation, we show its epistemic relevance to the case of explanation in biology. Furthermore, by including the notion of understanding, we propose a non-referentialist perspective on scientific models, which is determined by their use.

It is sometimes suggested that there are two kinds of reasoning: inferential reasoning and non-inferential reasoning. However, it is not entirely clear what the difference between these two kinds of reasoning is. In this paper, I try to answer the question what this difference is. I first discuss three answers to this question that I argue are unsatisfactory. I then give a different answer to this question, and I argue that this answer is satisfactory. I end by showing (...) that this answer can help to resolve some disagreements in which the difference between inferential and noninferential reasoning plays a role. (shrink)

There is a felt difference between following an argument to its conclusion and keeping up with an argument in your judgments while failing to see how its conclusion follows from its premises. In the first case there’s what I’m calling an inferential seeming, in the second case there isn’t. Inferential seemings exhibit a cluster of functional and normative characteristics whose integration in one mental state is puzzling. Several recent accounts of inferring suggest inferential seemings play a significant (...) role in the process, but none provides a fully satisfactory understanding of inferential seemings themselves. In this paper I critically examine theoretical options on offer in the existing literature, then develop an alternative view. I discuss implications for recent debates about general principles governing inference, such as Fumerton’s Principle of Inferential Justification and Boghossian’s Taking Condition. (shrink)

The ostensive-inferential model is a model of communication, an alternative to the code model of communication, based on pragmatic competence: it explains human communication in terms of expression and recognition of informative and communicative intentions, founding comprehension on the distinction between literal meaning and the speaker’s meaning. Through informative intentions we try to make evident the content of a message to a receiver, or to make evident what we want to communicate to him/her: communicative intentions are used to make (...) evident the very fact that we intend to communicate. One hypothesis is that ostensive-inferential communication is what makes human language possible. Since an extensive literature has highlighted the role of the Theory of Mind in ostensive-inferential communication, this hypothesis fits with the idea that a mechanism for mentalizing underlies human communication. The aim of the present paper is to stress the role of lower-level mechanisms, specifically of motor simulation, in the recognition of informative and communicative intentions, in order to outline an embodied account of ostensive communication. Specifically, the hypothesis is that this process is involved in language acquisition during development, and that it plays a role in the associative learning process involved in language acquisition during childhood. To this aim, in future research it may be useful to test the involvement of motor simulation (specifically, phono-articulatory and semantic) in the recognition of informative and communicative intentions in toddlers. Since some models of language evolution focus on the role of motor simulation, a supplementary goal is to deepen its role in the biological evolution of language, focusing on the specific link between motor simulation and intentions in the framework of ostensive-inferential model. (shrink)

I present an account of how agents can know what they are doing when they intentionally execute object-oriented actions. When an agent executes an object-oriented intentional action, she uses perception in such a way that it can fulfil a justificatory role for her knowledge of her own action and it can fulfil this justificatory role without being inferentially linked to the cognitive states that it justifies. I argue for this proposal by meeting two challenges: in an agent's knowledge (...) of her action perception can only play an enabling role (and no justificatory role) for the agent's knowledge and if perception has a justificatory role, then the agent's knowledge must be inferential. (shrink)

Anti-reductionists hold that beliefs based upon comprehension (of both force and content) of tellings are non-inferentially justified. For reductionists, on the other hand, comprehension as such is not in itself a warrant for belief: beliefs based on it are justified only if inferentially supported by other beliefs. I discuss Elizabeth Fricker's argument that even if anti-reductionism is right in principle, its significance is undercut by the presence of background inferential support: for mature knowledgeable adults, justification from comprehension as such (...) plays no active role, and is superseded by inferential warrant. I show that her argument begs important questions. Inferential and non-inferential support combine to over-determine the justification of comprehension-based beliefs. (shrink)

We outline a framework for analyzing episodes from the history of science in which the application of mathematics plays a constitutive role in the conceptual development of empirical sciences. Our starting point is the inferential conception of the application of mathematics, recently advanced by Bueno and Colyvan. We identify and discuss some systematic problems of this approach. We propose refinements of the inferential conception based on theoretical considerations and on the basis of a historical case study. We (...) demonstrate the usefulness of the refined, dynamical inferential conception using the well-researched example of the genesis of general relativity. Specifically, we look at the collaboration of the physicist Einstein and the mathematician Grossmann in the years 1912--1913, which resulted in the jointly published ``Outline of a Generalized Theory of Relativity and a Theory of Gravitation,'' a precursor theory of the final theory of general relativity. In this episode, an independently developed mathematical theory, the theory of differential invariants and the absolute differential calculus, was applied in the process of physical theorizing aiming at finding a relativistic theory of gravitation. We argue that the dynamical inferential conception not only provides a natural framework to describe and analyze this episode, but it also generates new questions and insights. We comment on the mathematical tradition on which Grossmann drew, and on his own contributions to mathematical theorizing. We argue that the dynamical inferential conception allows us to identify both the role of heuristics and of mathematical resources as well as the systematic role of problems and mistakes in the reconstruction of episodes of conceptual innovation and theory change. (shrink)

Deflationists about truth hold that the function of the truth predicate is to enable us to make certain assertions we could not otherwise make. Pragmatists claim that the utility of negation lies in its role in registering incompatibility. The pragmatist insight about negation has been successfully incorporated into bilateral theories of content, which take the meaning of negation to be inferentially explained in terms of the speech act of rejection. We implement the deflationist insight in a bilateral theory by (...) taking the meaning of the truth predicate to be explained by its inferential relation to assertion. We combine this account of the meaning of the truth predicate with a new diagnosis of the Liar Paradox: its derivation requires the truth rules to preserve evidence, but these rules only preserve commitment. The result is a novel inferential deflationist theory of truth, which solves the Liar Paradox in a principled manner. We end by showing that our theory and simple extensions thereof have the resources to axiomatize the internal logic of several supervaluational hierarchies, including Cantini’s. This solves open problems of Halbach (2011) and Horsten (2011). (shrink)

This paper is a response to “Inferential Evidence” by Jeffrey Dunn, in which he argues that my account of evidence is internally inconsistent, and that any form of Bayesian epistemology excludes evidence gained by inductive inference (which my account allows). In response, I show how the alleged inconsistency dissolves once the process of gaining evidence by inductive inference is fully articulated into the relevant stages, with due attention to the potential role of recognitional capacities.

The aim of the paper is to explore the interrelation between persuasion tactics and properties of speech acts. We investigate two types of arguments ad: ad hominem and ad baculum. We show that with both of these tactics, the structures that play a key role are not inferential, but rather ethotic, i.e., related to the speaker’s character and trust. We use the concepts of illocutionary force and constitutive conditions related to the character or status of the speaker in (...) order to explain the dynamics of these two techniques. In keeping with the research focus of the Polish School of Argumentation, we examine how the pragmatic and rhetorical aspects of the force of ad hominem and ad baculum arguments exploit trust in the speaker’s status to influence the audience’s cognition. (shrink)

One sometimes believes a proposition without grasping it. For example, a complete achromat might believe that ripe tomatoes are red without grasping this proposition. My aim in this paper is to shed light on the difference between merely believing a proposition and grasping it. I focus on two possible theories of grasping: the inferential theory, which explains grasping in terms of inferential role, and the phenomenal theory, which explains grasping in terms of phenomenal consciousness. I argue that (...) the phenomenal theory is more plausible than the inferential theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an inferential conception of computer simulations, emphasizing the role that simulations play as inferential devices to represent empirical phenomena. Three steps are involved in a simulation: an immersion step, a derivation step, and an interpretation and correction step. After presenting the view, I mention some cases, such as simulations of the current flow between silicon atoms and buckyballs as well as of genetic regulatory systems. I argue that the inferential conception accommodates (...) the integration of empirical and theoretical data; it makes sense of the role that is played by false traits in a simulation, andhighlights the similarities and differences between simulations and scientific instruments. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the calculization of evocation and erotetic implication as defined by Inferential Erotetic Logic (IEL). There is a straightforward approach to calculizing (propositional) erotetic implication which cannot be applied to evocation. First-order evocation is proven to be uncalculizable, i.e. there is no proof system, say FOE, such that for all X, Q: X evokes Q iff there is an FOE-proof for the evocation of Q by X. These results suggest a critique of the represented approaches to (...) calculizing IEL. This critique is expanded into a programmatic reconsideration of the IEL-definitions of evocation and erotetic implication. From a different point of view these definitions should be seen as desiderata that may or may not play the role of a point of orientation when setting up "rules of asking". (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this study, we developed a cognitive bias modification procedure that targets inferential style, and tested its effect on hope, mood, and self-esteem. Participants were randomly assigned to training conditions intended to encourage either a negative or a positive inferential style. Participants’ inferences for their failure on a cognitive challenge were congruent with their training condition. Moreover, compared to participants in the positive training condition, those in the negative condition reported less hope and exhibited lower mood and self-esteem (...) following the failure. Finally, the training affected mood and self-esteem indirectly via its effect on participants’ inferences for their failure. These findings provide support for the causal role of inferential style in depressed affect. (shrink)

In previous published research (“Conditionals and Inferential Connections: A Hypothetical Inferential Theory,” Cognitive Psychology, 2018), we investigated experimentally what role the presence and strength of an inferential connection between a conditional’s antecedent and consequent plays in how people process that conditional. Our analysis showed the strength of that connection to be strongly predictive of whether participants evaluated the conditional as true, false, or neither true nor false. In this article, we re-analyse the data from our previous (...) research, now focussing on the semantics of conditionals rather than on how they are processed. Specifically, we use those data to compare the main extant semantics with each other and with inferentialism, a semantics according to which the truth of a conditional requires the presence of an inferential connection between the conditional’s component parts. (shrink)

Inferential statistical tests-such as analysis of variance, t-tests, chi-square and Wilcoxin signed ranks-now constitute a principal class of methods for the testing of scientific hypotheses. In this paper I will consider the role of one statistical concept (statistical power) and two statistical principles or assumptions (homogeneity of variance and the independence of random error), in the reliable application of selected statistical methods. I defend a tacit but widely-deployed naturalistic principle of explanation (E): Philosophers should not treat as inexplicable (...) or basic those correlational facts that scientists themselves do not treat as irreducible. In light of (E), I contend that the conformity of epistemically reliable statistical tests to these concepts and assumptions entails at least the following modest or austere realist commitment: (C) The populations under study have a stable theoretical or unobserved structure that metaphysically grounds the observed values; the objects therefore have a fixed value independent of our efforts to measure them. (C) provides the best explanation for the correlation between the joint use of statistical assumptions and statistical tests, on the one hand, and methodological success on the other. (shrink)

I want to talk about a certain epistemic quality that I call “justification,” and inquire whether that quality can ever be had “immediately” or “non-inferentially.” Before we get into substantive issues, we need first to agree about what epistemic quality it is we’ll be talking about, and then we need to clarify what it is to have that quality immediately or non-inferentially. When I say I call this epistemic quality “justification,” you’re liable to think, “Oh I know what that is.” (...) You may. But experience has taught me that different philosophers use and understand the term “justification” differently, even before they start spinning substantive theories about what “justification” amounts to. So we should proceed cautiously. You may use the term “justification” to describe the same epistemic quality as I do; or you may use it to describe some different status or quality. You may use some other term, or no term at all, to describe the quality I call “justification.” I say that you have justification to believe P iff you’re in a position where it would be epistemically appropriate for you to believe P, a position where P is epistemically likely for you to be true. I intend this to be a very inclusive epistemic status.1 Some philosophers say you can know P without “having any justification” for your belief. We can assume that whenever a subject knows P, she’ll be in a position where it’d be epistemically appropriate to believe P. So on my usage, whoever knows P has justification to believe P. (Perhaps she has that justification because she knows.) The philosophers who say otherwise are using “having justification” to mean something different, or more specific, than the epistemic status I am using it to mean. The same goes for philosophers who say a belief can be epistemically appropriate, and so play a role in justifying other beliefs, though you do not “have any justification” for it. On my usage. (shrink)

How do we construct ad hoc concepts, especially those characterised by emergent properties? A reasonable hypothesis, suggested both in psychology and in pragmatics , is that some sort of inferential processing must be involved. I argue that this inferential processing can be accounted for in associative terms. My argument is based on the notion of inference as associative pattern completion based on schemata, with schemata being conceived in turn as patterns of concepts and their relationships. The possible (...) class='Hi'>role of conscious attention in inferential processes of this sort is also addressed. (shrink)

Picturing is a poorly understood element of Sellars’s philosophical project. We diagnose the problem with picturing as follows: on the one hand, it seems that it must be connected with action in order for it to do its job. On the other hand, the representational states of a picturing system are characterized in descriptive and seemingly static terms. How can static terms be connected with action? To solve this problem, we adopt a concept from recent work in Sellarsian metaethics: the (...) idea of a material practical inference, which (we argue) features centrally in how we picture. The key distinction is that the picturing of nonhuman animals involves only Humean material practical inference, in which representational states are corrected only by feedback from the environment and not from discursive interactions. The resulting view shows that Sellars’s contributions to practical philosophy (especially theory of action and metaethics) cannot be separated from his contributions to philosophy of mind, language, and cognitive science. Further, the view makes it clear that picturing is neither a version of the Given, nor is it a fifth wheel to inferential role in explaining representation, but is essential to Sellars’s model of how animals—including humans—represent their environment. (shrink)

To justify inductive inference and vanquish classical skepticisms about human memory, external world realism, etc., Richard Fumerton proposes his “inferential internalism,” an epistemology whereby humans ‘see’ by Russellian acquaintance Keynesian probable relations (PRs) between propositions. PRs are a priori necessary relations of logical probability, akin to but not reducible to logical entailments, such that perceiving a PR between one’s evidence E and proposition P of unknown truth value justifies rational belief in P to an objective degree. A recent critic (...) of inferential internalism is Alan Rhoda, who questions its psychological plausibility. Rhoda argues that in order to see necessary relations between propositions E and P, one would need acquaintance with too many propositions at once, since our evidence E is often complex. In this paper, I criticize Rhoda’s implausibility objection as too quick. Referencing the causal status effect (CSE) from psychology, I argue that some of the complex features of evidence E contribute to our type-categorizing it as E-type, and thus we do not need to ‘see’ all of the complex features when we see the PR between E and P. My argument leaves unchanged Fumerton’s justificatory role for the PR, but enhances its psychological plausibility. (shrink)

The semantics of natural kind terms has recently been seen as a problem of reference. Kripke and Putnam have suggested that their meaning begins with rigid designation, with any further implications emerging after empirical study. I part ways with this approach and instead offer an account that focuses on the contribution that these terms make to the inferential roles of different sorts of sentences. I note that natural kind terms play an odd array of grammatical roles, both as subject (...) and as parts of predicates, and explain why this dual role contributes something pragmatically significant to explanations of natural phenomena. (shrink)

This chapter introduces inferential role semantics (IRS) and some of the challenges it faces. It also introduces inferentialism and places it into the wider context of contemporary philosophy of language. The chapter focuses on what is standardly considered both the most important test case for and the most natural application of IRS: logical inferentialism, the view that the meanings of the logical expressions are fully determined by the basic rules for their correct use, and that to understand a (...) logical expression is to use it in accordance with the appropriate rules. It discusses some of the benefits of logical inferentialism, chiefly with regard to the epistemology of logic, and considers a number of objections. The chapter critically examines Robert Brandom's inferentialism about linguistic and conceptual content in general. Finally, it considers a number of general objections to IRS and possible responses on the inferentialist's behalf. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars's analysis of the concept of meaning led, in effect, to the conclusion that the meaning of an expression is its inferential role. This view is often challenged by the claim that inference is a matter of syntax and syntax can never yield us semantics. I argue that this challenge is based on the confusion of two senses of "syntax"; and I try to throw some new light on the concept of inferential role. My conclusion (...) is that the Sellarsian view that something can have meaning only if it is subject to inferences is viable, and that inferential role is a plausible explication of meaning. However I also argue, pace Sellars, that the inferential nature of meaning does not prevent us from engaging in the enterprise of Carnapian formal semantics. (shrink)