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This chapter criticizes the property dualism argument. It argues that one version of the argument conflates two different notions of mode of presentation: the “cognitive mode of presentation,” which is defined in terms of its role in determining reference and/or explaining cognitive significance; and the “metaphysical mode of presentation,” which is a property of the referent in virtue of which the cognitive mode of presentation plays its semantic and cognitive roles. It also examines John Perry's (2001) book, which discusses both Max Black's argument and the Knowledge Argument as well as some arguments drawn from Stephen White's (1986) essay on the topic and arguments inspired by unpublished papers by White.

This chapter proposes natural definitions for a variety of doxastic notions, including disbelief, doubt, and suspension of judgment. Some plausible axioms are considered. A number of questionable theorems, excluding the prospect of being of two minds, are derived from the union of the proposed definitions and axioms. An alternative basis is proposed. The so-called hidden indexical theory of Mark Crimmins, Stephen Schiffer, and John Perry is criticized.

This chapter discusses philosophers John Perry and George Myro's defence of occasional identities. Perry focuses on a case in which two individuals are psychologically connected to some earlier individual in such a way that there is a good case for saying that each one is identical with that earlier individual. Myro defends occasional identities by showing how the Leibnizian relation of identity can hold between x and y at one time without holding between x and y whenever x or y exists. This chapter evaluates the validity of the defence made by Perry and Myro.

This chapter reviews a range of responses to Frank Jackson's knowledge argument against materialism with the aim of shedding some light on the lesson that should be drawn from the thought experiment that is used in the argument. It is argued that it helps to sharpen the problem to characterize the information that Mary (who is theoretically knowledgeable about color, but has no visual experience of color) lacks in terms of the possibilities compatible with her knowledge. The Fregean response to the problem that tries to explain the information in terms of senses or concepts is criticized, as is the ability response that rejects the assumption that it is information of any kind that Mary lacks. The chapter concludes with a discussion of John Perry's use of the analogy between self-locating information and phenomenal information, arguing that this response to the problem is on the right track, but that it requires a different account of self-locating information than the one provided by Perry.

A puzzle about indexical or self‐locating belief is discussed. It is argued that with the help of the apparatus of propositional concepts and diagonal propositions developed in ch. 4 (’Assertion’) and 6 (Semantics for belief’), the phenomena can be reconciled with the doctrine of propositions—the thesis that the objects of belief are impersonal and timeless propositions. Alternative accounts of indexical belief, proposed by John Perry and by David Lewis are criticized.

Chapter 3 presents arguments against reductive approaches to the first-person perspective. John Perry argues that first-personal phenomena fit into a non-first-person ontology. I argue that he does not succeed. Then, I consider David Lewis's analysis of de se belief. His analysis construes all belief in terms of self-ascription of properties. I argue that his view of self-ascription presupposes that the believer has a robust first-person perspective, and that beliefs with more complicated content than the ones that Lewis considers elude his analysis altogether. Then, I consider John Searle's view that combines epistemological naturalism with ontological dualism. Finally, I turn to several different approaches to cognitive science and argue that none of them can accommodate the crucial distinction between believing something about oneself in the first person and believing something about someone who is in fact oneself.

This chapter addresses how discourses around Internet freedom have served a variety of interests and ideologies. However, all of the various conceptions of Internet freedom have to be challenged in light of technological change. Traditional notions of Internet freedom are disconnected from actual technical, political, and market conditions. Internet freedom has a long history, but all incarnations center on the transmission and free flow of content, from John Perry Barlow's “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” and calls for freedom from regulation to the United States Department of State's Internet freedom foreign-policy campaign. Normative frameworks should adjust both to the realities of information control from private ordering and authoritarian power and the rising human rights challenges of cyber-physical systems.

This chapter focuses on the disagreements among scientists regarding the age of the Earth. In 1868 Archibald Geikie had endorsed Kelvin's 100-million-year timescale. Over the decades, he watched as the fund of time available to geology shrank until the science approached temporal bankruptcy. Geikie acknowledged the successes that uniformitarianism had brought to the understanding of the Earth, yet, he said, “We must admit that the doctrine has been pushed to an extreme perhaps not contemplated by its original founders.” A new challenge to Kelvin came from Geikie's colleague at the Geological Survey of Scotland, James Croll. In an 1877 article, Croll pointed out that Kelvin's result depended on unprovable assumptions. Kelvin's approach was also challenged by John Perry and Thomas Chamberlin. In 1924, George P. Merrill, the head curator of geology at the U.S. National Museum, reviewed the various estimates of geological time that scientists from Charles Lyell to Clarence King had made.

Just as we can use ‘Mark Twain’ and ‘Samuel Clemens’ to co-refer, we can use ‘Odysseus’ and ‘Ulysses’ to co-identify—where ‘identification’ carries no ontological commitment. How is this possible if neither name picks out an individual, let alone the same one? The main claim of this chapter is that we can explain co-identification by appeal to the ways uses of names are linked together in communicative practices. Two ways of conceptualizing our communicative practices of using names are distinguished and compared: a name-centric approach, inspired by Kripke’s account of reference-fixing, and an alternative information-centric approach, inspired by Evans’s critique of Kripke. It is argued that only an approach that takes information to be central to the practices that underpin our uses of names has the resources to explain co-identification.

According to the Selfer view, your first-personally anticipating, or having future-directed self-interested concern with regard to, a person’s experiences at a future time is appropriate only if the way you are now is relevantly psychologically connected to the way that person will be at that time. The relevant sort of psychological connectedness is being substantively alike with regard to values, desires, and projects. So to be Selfer is to be committed to the view that a person will have, at a future time, what matters in survival for you only if that person will have, at that time, (enough of) your current values, desires, and projects. This chapter opposes the Selfer view.

This chapter analyzes Locke’s seminal treatment of personal identity and examines objections to it and replies to them. It (1) discusses his sharp divorce between a person’s identity and the identity of any substance, (2) formulates in analytical style his definition of personal identity in terms of memory, and (3) explains his view that personal identity is a “forensic” notion. Regarding (1), it argues that although Locke’s same substance/different person scenario makes sense, his same person/different substance scenario crosses the bounds of sense. Regarding (2), it shows how a definition of personal identity in terms of memory can be refined so as to avoid counterexamples proposed by Berkeley, Thomas Reid, and John Perry. Regarding (3), it argues that such a refined definition is incompatible with Locke’s forensic view of personhood, unless one appeals to Christian doctrine about the afterlife and about Judgement Day—as indeed Locke was prepared to do.

The Symmetry Constraint calls for the possibility of token-equivalence in sense between a token of “I” and, for example, a token of “you.” But understanding how to use the first person pronoun “I” is different from understanding how to use the second person pronoun “you.” So one corollary of the Symmetry Constraint is that we need to distinguish: (a) The token-sense of “I”: What a speaker/hearer understands when they utter or hear a token utterance involving “I”; and (b) The type-sense of “I”: What a speaker/hearer can properly be said to understand by the expression “I.” This chapter shows how this distinction cannot be mapped onto standard distinctions made in discussions of “I” and other indexicals. In particular, none of the proposed accounts does what a satisfactory account of token-sense must do, namely, respect both Frege’s criterion for sameness/difference of sense (particularly with respect to coreferential proper names) and the Symmetry Constraint.