Rescuing the fact-insensitivity thesis

• Ano de defesa: 2024
• Autor(a) principal: Costa, Claiton Silva da
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul; Escola de Humanidades; Brasil; PUCRS; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia
• Palavras-chave em Português: Normativity; Principles; Explanation; Cohen; Normatividade; Princípios; Explicação; CIENCIAS HUMANAS::FILOSOFIA
• Link de acesso: https://tede2.pucrs.br/tede2/handle/tede/11468

This thesis explores the debates surrounding G.A. Cohen’s fact-insensitivity thesis. I argue that, so long we take for granted either the counterfactual theory of explanation aligned with fictionalism about grounding or unificationism about explanation, we have a favorable outcome for his thesis. In the first part I challenge, without any big assumption, some the critiques the thesis received in the literature and all the attempts to defend it from the critiques. In the second part I explore the logical consequences of some theories of explanation (CTE and unificationism) for Cohen’ thesis. I demonstrate that the former is wanting to deal with a regress problem, but not the latter. I conclude that, in the light of unificationism, Cohen’s thesis remains unimpaired by any of its critiques