Las cualidades secundarias y el valor epistémico de la experiencia estética

Entendido lo estético como vinculado al carácter apreciativo de la experiencia sensible, el presente artículo explora su rescate del ámbito de la mera opinión vinculándolo con la intencionalidad de la sensación. Tras definir el problema en la introducción, el texto se centra en las llamadas cualidades secundarias, objeto inmediato de la sensación. Se parte de la hipótesis de que el débil contenido epistémico que se ha atribuido a las cualidades secundarias a lo largo de la historia es responsable de la difícil valoración del juicio estético. Se procede por ello a una reformulación del tipo de noticia que recibimos de dichas cualidades, partiendo de la definición de cualidad secundaria de John Locke, y revisándola a partir de algunos textos de John McDowell y Crispin Wright, en diálogo con la teoría aristotélica de los sensibles propios. El resultado de esta revisión afectará al papel que atribuyamos, dentro del espectro de las disciplinas, a la estética y, secundariamente, al arte. Considering Aesthetics as linked to the appreciative nature of sensorial experience, this article uses the concept of intentionality of sen-sation to rescue Aesthetics from being confined into the scope of mere opinions. After introducing and defining the problem, the text focuses on the so– called secondary qualities, immediate object of the sensation. The hypothesis is that the weak epistemic content attributed to secondary qualities throughout history is responsible for the difficult assessment of aesthetic judgment. A reformula-tion of the kind of news we receive from these qualities is proposed reviewing John McDowell and Crispin Wright review of Lockean’s secon-dary qualities, in dialogue with the Aristotelian theory of the proper sensible. The result of this review should influence the role we attribute, within the spectrum of disciplines, to Aesthetics and, secondarily, to Art.

Truth, Superassertability, and Conceivability

The superassertability theory of truth, inspired by Crispin Wright (1992, 2003), holds that a statement is true iff it is superassertable in the following sense: it possesses warrant that cannot be defeated by any improvement of our information. While initially promising, the superassertability theory of truth is vulnerable to a persistent difficulty highlighted by Van Cleve (1996) and Horgan (1995) but not properly fleshed out: it is formally/informally illegitimate in a similar sense that unsophisticated epistemic theories of truth (theories that identify truth with bare warranted assertability) are widely acknowledged to be. Sustained analysis reveals that the unrestricted formal/informal legitimacy argument is firmly grounded in first-person conceivability/possibility evidence.

Truth, Superassertability, and Conceivability

The superassertability theory of truth, inspired by Crispin Wright (1992, 2003), holds that a statement is true iff it is superassertable in the following sense: it possesses warrant that cannot be defeated by any improvement of our information. While initially promising, the superassertability theory of truth is vulnerable to a persistent difficulty highlighted by Van Cleve (1996) and Horgan (1995) but not properly fleshed out: it is formally/informally illegitimate in a similar sense that unsophisticated epistemic theories of truth (theories that identify truth with bare warranted assertability) are widely acknowledged to be. Sustained analysis reveals that the unrestricted formal/informal legitimacy argument is firmly grounded in first-person conceivability/possibility evidence.

TRUTH, REALISM, RELATIVISM: INTERCONNECTION AND RECIPROCAL DEFINABILITY

In the contemporary English-language philosophy the problems of truth, realism, and relativism appear actual and interconnected; this evidences reciprocal complementarity and definability between metaphysics, epistemology and methodologies of philosophical investigations. In the article relevant views of prominent today philosophers – Paul Boghossian, Crispin Wright, JC Beall – are comparatively analyzed. In the considered articles the ordinary view on dispute of inclinations is analyzed in competition with other possible interpretations. For example, one person likes stewed rhubarb, another – doesn’t. This is a case of true disagreement: each person maintains the position that another denies. Such disagreement Wright calls the dispute of inclinations; ordinary view on dispute of inclinations involves: really incompatible attitudes (contradiction), the faultlessness of each side, rational maintaining of the view in spite of obvious unresolved disagreement (sustainability). According to Boghossian the attitude of relativism involves tree components: metaphysical – denying of “absolute” facts of a certain type (from some specific investigative domain) in favor of relative; recommendational – permission to accept only appropriate relative propositions; limiting – about meanings which allow unexpected parameters that relativize. Beall advocates “Polarity View” and fruitfully applies it to analyze the ordinary view. Modeling of the former involves: concepts of truthmakers, positive and negative polarity, atomic facts, situational semantics. The formal modeling and philosophical explanation coincide. Each of the authors defends realism and correspondence understanding of truth (in particular truth as relation of proposition’s correspondence to a fact); and also opposes relativism. At the same time, relativism turns out to be an inevitable (at least implicitly inherent to all three authors) tendency, which testifies to at least the contextual (Boghossian) relativity of non-cognitive concepts or competencies (Wright); functional fixation of facts in their application (Beall).

Realist and antirealist interpretations of Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations

The sceptical paradox which Kripke found in Wittgenstein?s rule-following considerations threatens the very notion of meaning. However, Kripke also offered a sceptical solution to it, according to which semantic sentences have no truth conditions, but their meaning is determined by assertability conditions instead. He presented Wittgenstein?s development as the abandoning of semantic realism of the Tractatus in favour of semantic antirealism, characteristic of Philosophical Investigations. Crispin Wright, although at points critical of Kripke?s interpretation, also understood the rule-following considerations as containing a crucial argument for antirealism. Contrary to Wright, John McDowell maintained that they offer a transcendental argument for realism. In this paper, I will argue that neither the realist nor the antirealist reading is faithfull to Wittgenstein, as his important conceptual distinction between criteria and symptoms is not adequately recoverable in any of them. Hence the upshot of rulefollowing considerations is that the distinction between realism and antirealism should not be articulated in terms of truth/assertability conditions.

On the Alleged Instability of Externalist Anti-skepticism

A certain brand of skeptical argument appeals to the thought that our inability to subjectively discriminate between competing hypotheses means that we are unwarranted in believing in either. Externalists respond by pointing out that such arguments depend on an internalist conception of warrant that we would do well to reject. This strategy has been criticized by Crispin Wright, who argues that if we pursue the implications of externalism sufficiently far we find that it is ultimately unstable or incoherent. I first rehearse the simple externalist anti-skeptical position. I then present Wright’s argument for the externalist instability, offering a clearer way of understanding its central claim. Finally, I show that the instability in fact arises due to hidden internalist assumptions about evidence and that rid of these assumptions the externalist position is stable after all.

The truth about reasons

This chapter explores constructivism’s commitments in the theory of truth. It starts by considering in more detail what an account of the truth of reason judgements that is compatible with constructivism would have to look like. It then introduces a neo-pragmatist conception of truth that builds on the work of Crispin Wright and others, which meets those requirements and fits well with the constructivist’s overall approach because it connects the truth of a reason judgement to the soundness of the corresponding episode of reasoning. This conception of truth is embedded in a pluralist account, according to which there are different ways of being true in different domains of judgement. Finally, the chapter discusses the account of practical reasons that combining this conception of truth with the constructivist’s overall approach yields.

Bolzano’s Definition of Analytic Propositions with Crispin Wright

The chapter begins by drawing attention to some drawbacks of the Frege-Quine definition of analytic truth. With this the definition of analytic propositions given by Bolzano in his Wissenschaftslehre is contrasted. If Bolzano’s definition is viewed, as Bolzano himself almost certainly did not view it, as attempting to capture the notion of analyticity as truth-in-virtue-of-meaning, which occupied centre stage during the first half of the last century and which, Quine’s influential assault on it notwithstanding, continues to attract philosophical attention, it runs into some very serious problems. It is argued that Bolzano’s central idea can, nevertheless, be used as the basis of a new definition which avoids these problems and possesses definite advantages over the Frege-Quine approach.

Inferentialism, Logicism, Harmony, and a Counterpoint

Inferentialism is explained as an attempt to provide an account of meaning that is more sensitive (than the tradition of truth-conditional theorizing deriving from Tarski and Davidson) to what is learned when one masters meanings. The logically reformist inferentialism of Dummett and Prawitz is contrasted with the more recent quietist inferentialism of Brandom. Various other issues are highlighted for inferentialism in general, by reference to which different kinds of inferentialism can be characterized. Inferentialism for the logical operators is explained, with special reference to the Principle of Harmony. The statement of that principle in the author’s book Natural Logic is fine-tuned here in the way obviously required in order to bar an interesting would-be counterexample furnished by Crispin Wright, and to stave off any more of the same.