This is a project mostly about Epistemology. It also concerns other areas: Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphilosophy and Metaphysics. Our research aims to reach seven objectives:
(1) To provide solutions to certain epistemological tensions about draws and analogous situations, through the analysis of cases in which there seems to be knowledge of apparently very unlikely propositions; and also cases in which we allegedly know P in spite of not knowing certain highly likely propositions which we know follow from P.
(2) To revise the status of Shoemaker’s thesis according to which judgments that present “the I as a subject” both have an absolute immunity to error due to a mistaken singular identification and are first-person (de se) psychological judgments, in the light of recent criticisms to the effect that certain bodily judgments also possess that kind of immunity and, hence, should be regarded as well as judgments that also present “the I as a subject”.
(3) To explore a number of thesis in connection with an understanding of philosophy as a theoretical activity as a result of the appropriate elucidation and calibration of intuitions. This includes (a) to develop the hypothesis that to intuit that P corresponds with an appraisal/grasp of the simplicity of a belief system; (b) to complete the theoretical view that individuate concepts via their possession conditions with an analysis of cases of partial understanding; (c) to assess the reach and plausibility of Williamson’s thesis according to which knowledge cannot be decomposed or defined in the traditional way; (d) to analyze some aspects of the distinction philosophy/science, appealing to the notions of simplicity and naturalness.
(4) To elucidate the conditions for representation in three kinds of cases: (a) sentences containing proper names (hence singular representation); (b) sentences containing indexicals that allow for belief attributions de se (also involving singular representation); (b) sentences containing general kind terms.
(5) To explore a variety of cases in relation to which our pretheoretical convicitions or some hypothesis by several philosophers (Wittgenstein, C. Wright, Travis), or both elements simultaneously, would yield subjectivist interpretations (or less realist-objectivist than their statement intially suggests). Those cases include: linguistic meaning, in general; rule following, modal statements, free-will, certain kind of epistemic statements, humor, fiction.
(6) To clarify the way in which phenomenal consciousness contributes–in perceptual experiences–to putting the subject in a position to non-inferentially formulate judgments which singularize and attribute objective (mind-independent) properties to objects and events.
(7) To critically revise Stace’s thesis, according to which, the application of the orderliness criterion distinguishes mystic experiences and certain states of meditation from states that are characteristic of altered consciousness (induced by drug and alcohol consumption) and credit the former, but not the latter, with “objective validity”.
