Language, Knowledge and Metaphysics

The key-terms "language", "knowledge" and "metaphysics" arguably shape most of the recent researches in analytic philosophy. This volume aim to address some of the currently debated issues revolving around these three fundamental areas and, in particular: can the notion of "descriptive name" be extended to names of natural kinds? What does it mean for a belief to be justified? Is there a principled way to draw the distinction between causal and non causal relations? Do future contingent claims require us to employ a notion of relative truth? In what sense analytic sentences could be taken to be known a posteriori? The twelve papers collected in this volume arise from a selection of those presented during the First Graduate Conference of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy (SIFA) held at the University of Padua in September 2007. The authors are all young and brilliant scholars coming from some of the most prestigious universities in the world: University College (London), Nottingham, Princeton, Kentucky, Stanford, Eastern Piedmont, St. Andrews, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Duhram, Catholic University of Leuven, London School of Economics.