Fred Dretske Research Articles

Two New Successive Addition Arguments

AbstractOne of William Lane Craig's key arguments for the finitude of the past is the Successive Addition Argument (SAA). Malpass (2021) has recently developed a novel challenge to the SAA, utilising a thought experiment from the work of Fred Dretske, which is meant to show that it is possible to count to infinity, to argue that there is a counterexample to the SAA's second premise. In this paper, I contend that the Malpass‐Dretske counterexample should not worry advocates of the SAA. First, I argue that one objection Malpass considers—the Potential Infinite Objection—reveals an interesting fact: the SAA's second premise is unnecessarily strong and can be weakened whilst still yielding the same conclusion. Second, I show how another one of the objections considered by Malpass—the Accumulation Objection—is successful, provided some clarification to the SAA's premises. The upshot of both analyses is that we generate two ‘new’ Successive Addition arguments that not only move the dialectic forward, but shed light on deeper assumptions and motivating intuitions concerning the Kalām.

How to Know That You’re Not a Zombie

AbstractI am aware of the tree and its leaves, but am I aware of my awareness of these things? When I try to introspect my awareness, I just find myself attending to objects and their properties. This observation is known as the ‘transparency of experience’. On the other hand, I seem to directly know that I am aware. Given the first observation, it is not clear how I know that I am aware. Fred Dretske thought that the problem was so acute that he issued the challenge of answering ‘How do you know that you are not a zombie?’ I propose that a view found in the Advaita Vedanta, that awareness is self-luminous, reconciles these two observations. I understand self-luminosity as the thesis that: (1) I am implicitly aware of my awareness and (2) I am phenomenally aware of a distinct phenomenal character of my awareness. In support of the first claim, that I apparently only attend to objects in the world when introspecting perceptual experience, suggests that I do not know my awareness explicitly, but rather that I must know it implicitly. In support of the second claim, I argue that the mere fact that I am perceptually conscious is not sufficient to allow me to know that I am perceptually conscious. In particular, the qualities I am perceptually aware of do not tell me that I aware of them, rather they just seem to be properties of objects. I also assess whether strategies for responding to Cartesian sceptical scenarios can be employed against Dretske’s consciousness scepticism. I argue that these strategies either fail to distinguish me from a zombie or they do not adequately describe my epistemic situation. By contrast to other accounts, if awareness has its own distinct phenomenal character, then it cannot be considered to be a prima facie property of the world, hence the self-luminosity of awareness provides a plausible account of how I know that I’m not a zombie.

The Resurrection Shuffle

Several years ago, John Williams posted his final response to Clarke, Adams and Barker in an ongoing debate about the status of Robert Nozick’s truth-tracking account of propositional knowledge and Fred Dretske’s early “Conclusive Reasons” account of knowledge. In this paper, we respond directly to his “Still Stuck on the Backward Clock” paper. We think that Williams’ Backward Clock Example fails against both Nozick and Dretske. Moreover, other objections by Williams against our views are shown to be either false or misrepresentations of our position.

Xii—Knowing and Acknowledging Others

Abstract It is possible to tease out two questions in connection with the epistemological problem of other minds: (i) How do I know what others think and feel? and (ii) How do I know that others think and feel? Fred Dretske offers a perceptual account of our knowledge of other minds that yields an answer to (i) but not (ii). Quassim Cassam uses Dretske’s perceptual account to show how we can answer both (i) and (ii). In this paper I show how we can use Dretske’s work to understand some work by Stanley Cavell. I suggest that, where Dretske claims that we cannot answer (ii), Cavell holds that (ii) is a question that reflects a misunderstanding of our relations to others. In the place of asking how I can know that others think and feel, Cavell holds that I must acknowledge the other. And at the heart of this acknowledgment is an acceptance of others as separate from me. I must acknowledge the other as an other to me.

Properties, Collections, and the Successive Addition Argument: A Reply to Malpass

The Successive Addition Argument (SAA) is one of the key arguments espoused by William Lane Craig for the thesis that the universe began to exist. Recently, Malpass, Mind, 131(523), 786–804 (2021) has developed a challenge to the SAA by way of constructing a counterexample that originates in the work of Fred Dretske. In this paper, I show that the Malpass-Dretske counterexample is in fact no counterexample to the argument. Utilizing a distinction between properties of members and properties of collections, I argue that Malpass’ counterexample has no bearing on the soundness of the SAA. I also develop a novel parity argument against Malpass’ argument that I demonstrate can only be resolved by way of the aforementioned analysis.

A Forward-Looking Theory of Content

In this essay, I provide a forward-looking naturalized theory of mental content designed to accommodate predictive processing approaches to the mind, which are growing in popularity in philosophy and cognitive science. The view is introduced by relating it to one of the most popular backward-looking teleosemantic theories of mental content, Fred Dretske’s informational teleosemantics. It is argued that such backward-looking views (which locate the grounds of mental content in the agent’s evolutionary or learning history) face a persistent tension between ascribing determinate contents and allowing for the possibility of misrepresentation. A way to address this tension is proposed by grounding content attributions in the agent’s own ability to detect when it has represented the world incorrectly through the assessment of prediction errors—which in turn allows the organism to more successfully represent those contents in the future. This opens up space for misrepresentation, but that space is constrained by the forward-directed epistemic capacities that the agent uses to evaluate and shape its own representational strategies. The payoff of the theory is illustrated by showing how it can be applied to interpretive disagreements over content ascriptions amongst scientists in comparative psychology and ethology. This theory thus provides a framework in which to make content attributions to representations posited by an exciting new family of predictive approaches to cognition, and in so doing addresses persistent tensions with the previous generation of naturalized theories of content.

Closure and the Lottery

Abstract Ever since Fred Dretske (1970) questioned closure, a denial of this principle has been among the standard options for a resolution of epistemological paradoxes such as the skeptical paradox (Cohen 1988) and the lottery paradox (Harman 1973). In this article, the author shall argue that all possible solutions of the latter paradox can only be defended if Multi-Premise Closure is rejected. These possible solutions are contextualism and both simple and sensitive moderate invariantism. It will be shown that skepticism and the denial of Single-Premise Closure are not possible solutions of the lottery paradox. The upshot of the discussion here will be that while Single-Premise Closure is beyond reasonable doubt, resolving the lottery paradox forces one to abandon Multi-Premise Closure.

Counting to infinity, successive addition, and the length of the past

The Successive Addition Argument (SAA) is one of the arguments proposed by the defenders of the Kalām Cosmological Argument to support the claim that the universe has a beginning. The main premise of SAA states that a collection formed by successive addition cannot be an actual infinite. This premise is challenged by an argument originally proposed by Fred Dretske. According to Dretske’s Argument (DA), the scenario of a counter who starts counting numbers and never stops can provide a counterexample to the main premise of SAA. I argue that neither DA nor its past-oriented counterpart—which discusses the scenario of a counter who has always been counting negative integers from the infinite past—can play a decisive role in our evaluation of the strength of the arguments that are intended to establish the finitude of the past based on the impossibility of an actually infinite number of successive additions.

Arrangement and Timing: Photography, Causation and Anti-Empiricist Aesthetics

According to the causal theory of photography (CTP), photographs acquire their depictive content from the world, whereas handmade pictures acquire their depictive content from their makers’ intentional states about the world. CTP suffers from what I call the Problem of the Missing Agent: it seemingly leaves no room for the photographer to occupy a causal role in the production of their pictures and so is inconsistent with an aesthetics of photography. In this paper, I do three things. First, I amend CTP with Fred Dretske’s distinction between triggering and structuring causes, thereby overcoming the Problem of the Missing Agent. Second, I argue that CTP so amended in fact illuminates two aesthetic interests that we may take in photographs, focussing on photographic portraiture and street photography. Third, I show how reflection on the aesthetics of photography serves to support aesthetic anti-empiricism: the view that the aesthetic value of artworks consists, at least in part, in achievement rather than sensory pleasure.

Autorytet pierwszoosobowy i samowiedza w koncepcji Crispina Wrighta

The aim of this paper is to analyze Crispin Wright’s constitutivist account of self-knowledge and first-person authority. Wright offered an alternative to standard detectivist theories of selfknowledge and first-person authority. According to his proposal, the subject does not detect her mental states, but rather creates them. Wright offered his proposal as a result of considering the problem of rule-following. In the paper, I describe Wright’s solution and analyze its problems. I claim that these problems render his theory unconvincing, and I try to uncover the sources of his failure. First of all, I claim that Wright did not get rid of picturing self-knowledge as a kind of perception, and I suggest that some problems within his theory are the same as those within perceptual theories of self-knowledge. I then turn to problems with the interpretation according to which Wright presents first-person authority as a product of our mental discourse only. Finally, I present an outline of a solution to the problems of Wright’s theory in which I follow David Finkelstein’s neo-expressivist proposal. I argue that an expressivist solution can be obtained by considering Fred Dretske’s conciliatory skepticism and that investigating Dretske’s account enables one to understand why Wright’s question concerning the relationship between the subject and her mental states is ill-formulated.

Dretske’s Semantic Externalism Account and Its Problems

In this paper, I provide Fred Dretske’s semantic externalism thesis. He uses his thesis to propose a higher-order theory account of metacognition, that is, how do we know that we are not zombies? Then I provide Michael Potter’s views on the problem of mathematical knowledge. Using Potter’s work, I show that mathematical concepts like numbers escape the conditions on which semantic externalism is propounded. Furthermore, I argue that the evidence that our mind can understand and formulate mathematical concepts like abstract numbers and geometry shows that the metacognition in humans might be reflexive in nature. If not, then the higher-order theory account provided by Dretske needs revision or some additional explanation to accommodate mathematical knowledge.

Two Distinctions That Help to Chart the Interplay Between Conscious and Unconscious Volition.

Research initiated by Benjamin Libet suggests that short-term conscious intentions are not the onsets of bodily actions. However, other research, particularly on longer-term intentions, seems to show that at least some conscious intentions are effective. This leads to the idea that volition is a complex interplay between conscious and unconscious processes. The nature and structure of this interplay is mostly uncharted territory. In this article, I will highlight two currently neglected distinctions that will help to chart the territory. The first distinction is between intentions we become conscious of (passive) and consciously formed intentions (active). The second is Fred Dretske’s distinction between structuring and triggering causes. I will introduce both distinctions by discussing how they tie in with and strengthen recent criticism of free selection paradigms and support the idea that consciously self-initiated action issues from processes of conscious deliberation and/or information integration. I will argue that consciously self-initiated action typically involves consciously formed intentions that are the structuring causes of our actions. This notion of conscious intentional action allows us to identify at least four stages in which unconscious processes co-determine our actions—without undermining their self-initiated character.

Warrant, Conclusive Reason, and Failure-Of-Transfer-Of-Warrant

[full article, abstract in English; abstract in Lithuanian] Fred Dretske motivates his denial of epistemic closure by way of the thought that the warrant for the premises of a valid argument need not transfer (or ‘transmit’) to the argument’s conclusion. The failure-of-transfer-of-warrant (FTW) strategy has also been used by advocates of epistemic closure as a foil to Michael McKinsey’s argument against the compatibility of first person authority and semantic externalism, and also to illuminate, more generally, why certain valid arguments appear ill-suited for the purpose of establishing their conclusions. This paper takes re-examines some of the central attempts to explain transmission-failure, and a central line of objection to the strategy from Begging-the-Question theorists. The ultimate goal of this paper is to promote a decidedly Dretskean explanation of the unpersuasiveness of the said arguments.

Knowledge as Fact-Tracking True Belief

ABSTRACT Drawing inspiration from Fred Dretske, L. S. Carrier, John A. Barker, and Robert Nozick, we develop a tracking analysis of knowing according to which a true belief constitutes knowledge if and only if it is based on reasons that are sensitive to the fact that makes it true, that is, reasons that wouldn’t obtain if the belief weren’t true. We show that our sensitivity analysis handles numerous Gettier-type cases and lottery problems, blocks pathways leading to skepticism, and validates the epistemic closure thesis that correct inferences from known premises yield knowledge of the conclusions. We discuss the plausible views of Ted Warfield and Branden Fitelson regarding cases of knowledge acquired via inference from false premises, and we show how our sensitivity analysis can account for such cases. We present arguments designed to discredit putative counterexamples to sensitivity analyses recently proffered by Tristan Haze, John Williams and Neil Sinhababu, which involve true statements made by untrustworthy informants and strange clocks that sometimes display the correct time while running backwards. Finally, we show that in virtue of employing the paradox-free subjunctive conditionals codified by Relevance Logic theorists instead of the paradox-laden subjunctive conditionals codified by Robert Stalnaker and David Lewis.

Safety, Closure, and the Flow of Information

In his earlier writings, Fred Dretske proposed an anti-skeptical strategy that is based on a rejection of the view that knowledge is closed under known entailment. This strategy is seemingly congenial with a sensitivity condition for knowledge, which is often associated with Dretske’s epistemology. However, it is not obvious how Dretske’s early account meshes with the information-theoretic view developed in Knowledge and the Flow of Information. One aim of this paper is to elucidate the connections between these accounts. First I argue that, contrary to an objection raised by Christoph Jager, the information-theoretic account is compatible with Dretske’s anti-skeptical strategy based on the rejection of closure. This strategy invokes the notion of channel conditions, which are roughly speaking those conditions that are necessary and jointly sufficient for a signal to carry information. I propose an interpretation of the account that is based on the idea that a signal’s carrying information requires that the channel conditions are stable. It is shown that the resulting account incorporates both a sensitivity condition and a safety condition for knowledge. Finally, I demonstrate how this proposal allows for knowledge of modally robust propositions without making its acquisition too easy, as simple safety accounts do. I end with a suggestion concerning the direction that future research should take, based on the fact that in its present form the information-theoretic account does not capture inferential knowledge.

Two paradoxes of semantic information

Yehoshua Bar-Hillel and Rudolph Carnap’s classical theory of semantic information entails the counterintuitive feature that inconsistent statements convey maximal information. Theories preserving Bar-Hillel and Carnap’s modal intuitions while imposing a veridicality requirement on which statements convey information—such as the theories of Fred Dretske or Luciano Floridi—avoid this commitment, as inconsistent statements are deemed not information-conveying by fiat. This paper produces a pair of paradoxical statements that such “veridical-modal” theories must evaluate as both conveying and not conveying information, although Bar-Hillel and Carnap’s theory accommodates these statements without inconsistency. Moreover, the paradoxes are independently interesting as the mode in which they self-refer bears on their evaluation.

Wright Back to Dretske, or Why You Might as Well Deny Knowledge Closure

Fred Dretske notoriously claimed that knowledge closure sometimes fails. Crispin Wright agrees that warrant does not transmit in the relevant cases, but only because the agent must already be warranted in believing the conclusion in order to acquire her warrant for the premise. So the agent ends up being warranted in believing, and so knowing, the conclusion in those cases too: closure is preserved. Wright's argument requires that the conclusion's having to be warranted beforehand explains transmission failure. I argue that it doesn't, and that the correct explanation does not imply that the agent will end up warranted in believing the conclusion when transmission fails. Those who agree that transmission does fail in those cases, therefore, might as well follow Dretske in denying knowledge closure too.

An Informational Perspective on Agency Causation

According to Fred Dretske’s semantic information theory, the process of becoming informed consists of two parts: the transfer of information via a channel, and the subsequent formation of a semantic structure, called ‘digitalisation’. Leaving out any one of the two parts renders the concept of becoming informed incomplete. Similarly, Peter Menzies and Huw Price’s agency-account of causation has a bipartite structure. The account posits that an event A is a cause of a distinct event B in cases where bringing about the occurrence of A would be an effective means by which a free agent could bring about the occurrence of B. A major problem for this approach seems to be that the analysis contains two occurrences of ‘bringing about’, which might be taken for causal notions that would render the formula circular. However, applying two different interpretations to each of the occurrences yields a non-circular analysis of causation. These interpretations entail a conceptual structure of causation that is analogous to Dretske’s analysis of becoming informed. Building on this conceptual foundation, it can be shown that informational and causal views on events can be integrated into a combined account, according to which information channels and causal mechanisms are identical. Digitalisation and direct action are parts of causation by information, a concept that further binds becoming informed and causation to each other. Causation by information is relevant because it helps us make sense of the seeming contradiction of construing some events as actions, while at the same time allowing them to be effects of causes.

SENSITIVITY AND CLOSURE

AbstractJohn Hawthorne has two forceful arguments in favour of:Single-Premise Closure (SPC) Necessarily, if S knows p, competently deduces q from p, and thereby comes to believe q, while retaining knowledge of p throughout, then S knows q.Each of Hawthorne's arguments rests on an intuitively appealing principle which Hawthorne calls the Equivalence Principle. I show, however, that the opponents of SPC with whom he's engaging - namely Fred Dretske and Robert Nozick - have independent reason to reject this principle, and resultantly conclude that Hawthorne's arguments in favour of SPC are not knock-down.

Introspection as a Game of Make‐Believe

AbstractThe aim of this article is to provide an account of introspective knowledge concerning visual experiences that is in accordance with the idea of transparent introspection. According to transparent introspection, a person gains knowledge of her own current mental state M solely by paying attention to those aspects of the external world which M is about. In my view, transparent introspection is a promising alternative to inner sense theories. However, it raises the fundamental question why a person who pays attention to something extra‐mental should be epistemically justified in holding a belief about something intra‐mental. In his Naturalizing the Mind, Fred Dretske solves this problem by conceiving of introspection concerning visual experiences as an inference based on a connecting belief. Although Dretske's account proves defective upon closer inspection, its essence can be salvaged by looking upon introspection as being a game of make‐believe.