Against the standard interpretation of Kant’s ‘Copernican revolution’ as the prioritization of epistemology over ontology, I argue in this paper that his critique of traditional metaphysics must be seen as a farewell to the perfectionism on which early modern rationalist ontology and epistemology are built. However, Kant does not simply replace ‘perfection’ with another fundamental concept of normativity. More radically, Kant realizes that it is not simply ideas but only the relation of ideas that can be subject to norms, and thus he shifts the focus from the reality of ideas to the validity of judgments. Section 1 of this paper clarifies the pre-Kantian role of the concept of perfection and examines Kant’s critical response to that concept. Section 2 identifies Kant’s point of departure from the Cartesian ‘way of ideas.’ Section 3 explains the key problem of his novel account of epistemic normativity. I conclude that Kant’s anti-perfectionism must be seen as the driving force behind his ‘Copernican revolution’ in order to fully appreciate his mature account of epistemic normativity.

Edmund Gettier objects to analysing knowledge as justified true belief (JTB) on the ground that someone can justifiably infer a true conclusion from a justified false premise and hence not know the conclusion's truth, although the conclusion is justified. For instance, someone can justifiably deduce a true p v r from a justified but false p, where he has no justification for the true r. Gettier's objection draws on two assumptions: first, that a justified belief can be false; second, that a premise can justify a conclusion even though the premise is false.

Some JTB advocates grant the first assumption but deny the second. They usually concede the first assumption to protect the respectability of non-deductive inference. The argument is that if evidence e can nondeductively justify the conclusion c, then it must be possible for c to be justified and yet false, since e does not entail c. Although the assumption is sound, the argument as it stands fails to show it. But let us set this point aside for the moment.

A version of the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP) claims that one is only blameworthy for actions which one was able to avoid. Much of the discussion about PAP concerns Frankfurt’s counterexamples to it. After fifty years of refined debates, progress might seem hopeless. Yet, we can make headway by asking: “what’s our reason for believing PAP?” The best answer is this: lacking eligible alternatives—alternatives whose cost is not too high to reasonably opt for—is a good excuse. Yet, this principle is subject to straightforward counterexamples, unless it is given an epistemicised reading. And in this latter case, it does not support PAP. So, PAP is unsupported, at least for now.

Husser believed that Kant's great attempt to achieve and to understand the viewpoint of transcendental subjectivity failed. For “Kant, … so many presuppositions are ‘obviously’ valid, presuppositions which in the Humean sense are included in the world enigma (of how objectivity based on subjectivity is possible), (that he) never penetrated to the enigma itself.” The attempt failed in its origins, because Kant did not fully appreciate the character and extent of Hume's problem of the nature of the self and the possible extent of knowledge. Kant's attempt failed also in its results because Kant created mythical constructions; the noumenal object ‘behind’ sensible appearances, and the noumenal self ‘behind’ conscious describable acts and experiences. “Because he understands inner perception in this empiricist, psychological sense and because, warned by Hume's scepticism, he fears every recourse to the psychological as an absurd perversion of the genuine problem of the understanding, Kant gets involved in his mythical concept formation.”

Donnellan has introduced a distinction between two uses of referring terms, the referential and the attributive. A referentially used term is said to pick out that object the speaker has in mind, the one he meant or intended to refer to, while a term used attributively is said to pick out whichever object it names or denotes. While it is generally agreed that Donnellan has discovered a real difference in the way referring terms work, it has by no means been dear how the distinction could or should be handled theoretically. That has two consequences. First, intuitions diverge over difficult or marginal cases and, with no theory to appeal to, the taxonomic part of the enterprise is threatened. Second, the referential/attributive distinction has not become an accepted, relatively uncontroversial tool for solving problems about the semantics of utterances; and this is a least partly because of a lack of theory. But the distinction, so one feels, really is more important than it has thus far shown itself to be.

Phenomenal conservatism (PC) is the internalist view that non-inferential justification rests on appearances. PC’s advocates have recently argued that seemings are also required to explain inferential justification. The most developed view to this effect is Michael Huemer ’s theory of inferential seemings (ToIS). Luca Moretti has recently shown that PC is affected by the problem of reflective awareness, which makes PC open to sceptical challenges. In this paper I argue that ToIS is afflicted by a version of the same problem and it is thus hostage to inferential scepticism. I also suggest a possible response on behalf of ToIS’s advocates.

Is there a sense in which we exercise direct volitional control over our beliefs? Most agree that there is not, but discussions tend to focus on control in forming a belief. The focus here is on sustaining a belief over time in the face of ‘epistemic temptation’ to abandon it. It is argued that we do have a capacity for ‘doxastic self-control’ over time that is partly volitional in nature, and that its exercise is rationally permissible.

As it is presently employed, grounding permits grounding many things from one ground. In this paper, I show why this is a mistake by pushing for a uniqueness principle on grounding. After arguing in favor of this principle, I say something about it and kinds of grounding, discuss a similar principle, and consider its import on a formal feature of grounding, ontology, and ontological simplicity.

Social kinds are heterogeneous. As a consequence of this diversity, some authors have sought to identify and analyse different kinds of social kinds. One distinct kind of social kinds, however, has not yet received sufficient attention. I propose that there exists a class of social-computation-supporting kinds, or SCS-kinds for short. These SCS-kinds are united by the function of enabling computations implemented by social groups. Examples of such SCS-kinds are reimbursement form, US dollar bill, chair of the board. I will analyse SCS-kinds, contrast my analysis with theories of institutional kinds, and discuss the benefits of investigating SCS-kinds.