Terence Horgan


Terence Edward "Terry" Horgan is an American philosopher and a professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. His areas of expertise include philosophy of mind and metaethics.
Horgan obtained his bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1970 from Stanford University. In 1974, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan under the supervision of Jaegwon Kim, with his dissertation titled "Microreduction and the Mind-Body Problem." After holding professorships in Illinois, Michigan, and Memphis, Horgan has been a professor in Tucson, Arizona since 2002.

Phenomenal intentionality

Horgan has written many works on phenomenal intentionality, which is the idea of "an internal, narrow type of intentionality that is not only determined by phenomenology but is constituted by it". Horgan and his co-authors have been credited with inaugurating the "Phenomenal Intentionality Research Program".

Phenomenal intentionality theory (PIT)

Horgan is a leading proponent of the view that intentionality is grounded in phenomenal consciousness, often called the phenomenal intentionality theory. With John L. Tienson he argued that there exists "a kind of intentionality, pervasive in human mental life, that is constitutively determined by phenomenology alone," articulating the paired theses of the intentionality of phenomenology and the phenomenology of intentionality, and developing a "phenomenal duplicates" argument for the prevalence of phenomenal intentionality. In the same context Horgan and Tienson also contrasted PIT with what they dubbed "separatism," on which consciousness and intentionality are metaphysically independent.
Together with George Graham and Tienson, Horgan developed PIT in a moderate, derivativist direction: many non-phenomenal intentional states have their content in virtue of suitable functional or other systematic relations to phenomenal intentional states, rather than being phenomenal themselves. They further defended internalism and a corresponding account of narrow content via "brain-in-a-vat" scenarios, arguing that phenomenal consciousness provides the best basis for narrow intentional content even if reference and truth-conditions involve external relations.
Horgan has also linked PIT to issues of content determinacy, contending that purely physical, functional, or informational facts underdetermine the specific contents we represent (e.g., RABBIT vs. UNDETACHED-RABBIT-PARTS), and that appeal to phenomenal character helps explain how content is fixed. In parallel, he has been a prominent defender of cognitive phenomenology: he connects agentive phenomenology to thought phenomenology, argues for the evidential role of perceptual experience, and maintains that original intentionality is phenomenal intentionality.
Across these contributions, Horgan has used a range of phenomenological devices—contrast cases, spontaneous-thought examples, and agency-involving experiences—to argue that much of a thinker's web of belief and desire is structured by, or derives from, phenomenal character.

Moral phenomenology

Horgan has applied his phenomenological theories in investigating moral issues, such as formulating a theory of the supererogatory.

Narrow mental content

Horgan has been a central proponent of linking phenomenal intentionality to narrow mental content. With John Tienson, he argues that there is a pervasive kind of intentionality that is constitutively fixed by phenomenology alone, and that phenomenology itself depends only on an individual's intrinsic properties. Taken together, these claims support the existence of widespread narrow content: if phenomenal character is narrow and phenomenal character determines intentional content, then much intentional content is narrow as well.
To motivate both premises, Horgan, Tienson, and Graham adapt brain-in-a-vat scenarios: a physical duplicate of a subject's brain, sustained and stimulated so as to match the subject's internal states, would share the subject's phenomenology; because phenomenal character fixes phenomenal intentional content, many of the duplicate's intentional contents would match the original's too. This is intended to show both the narrowness of phenomenology and the reality of phenomenally determined content.
Although perceptual experience is the most immediate case, Horgan and collaborators extend the program beyond perception, arguing for distinctive phenomenologies of agency and of propositional attitudes, and for the thesis that all intentionality is either identical with, or derived from, phenomenal intentionality—thereby grounding a broad class of narrow contents for thought as well.
On the theoretical side, Horgan and Tienson suggest affinities between their approach and two-dimensional modal semantics for characterizing content, while related work with Uriah Kriegel emphasizes a broadly descriptive connection between phenomenal intentionality and reference.

General ontology

In metaphysics, Horgan defends austere realism, an ontological position developed with Matjaž Potrč. Austere realism combines a minimalist ontology with a contextual theory of truth. The ontology is "austere," excluding most common-sense objects, yet ordinary statements about such entities can still be true via semantic correctness under contextual standards.
In Austere Realism: Contextual Semantics Meets Minimal Ontology, Horgan and Potrč defended a version called blobjectivism: the view that only one concrete particular exists—the entire cosmos. Thus, Horgan and Potrč's view is a form of "Existence Monism". This entity has enormous spatiotemporal variability but no proper parts. Truth, on their account, is a matter of indirect correspondence rather than mirroring discrete objects. This view has been discussed in metametaphysical debates.

Philosophy of mind

In the philosophy of mind, Horgan has investigated the possibility of a physicalist interpretation of consciousness.

Views on the knowledge argument about qualia

In a 1984 paper, Horgan criticized Frank Cameron Jackson's dualistic thought experiment known as "Mary's Room" as merely exploiting an ambiguity in the notion of physical information, rendering it inconclusive since "physical information" carries different meanings in various premises. Since 2002, Horgan has begun arguing against it using conceivability arguments in the tradition of Saul Kripke and David Chalmers.

Views on reductionism and multiple realizability

In a 1993 paper, Horgan raised methodological caveats about reductionism regarding mind, resting ultimately on multiple realizability. He wrote:
Multiple realizability might well begin at home. For all we now know, the intentional mental states we attribute to one another might turn out to be radically multiply realizable at the neurobiological level of description, even in humans; indeed, even in individual humans; indeed, even in an individual human given the structure of his central nervous system at a single moment of his life.

Views on supervenience

Regarding the supervenience of the mental on the physical, Horgan has promoted the notion of "superdupervenience" as well as his own formulations of what he called "regional supervenience".
In an essay from 2002, Horgan describes his ambivalent stance towards physicalism as follows: "I remain deeply attracted to materialism in philosophy of mind; I would like to believe that the mental is superdupervenient on the physical. But the whole hard problem looks very hard indeed, and I see no prospects currently in sight for dealing with it satisfactorily. Much as I would like to be a materialist, at present I do not know what an adequate materialist theory of mind would look like."

Metaethics and moral philosophy

Horgan, with Mark Timmons, developed the Moral Twin Earth argument. In New Wave Moral Realism Meets Moral Twin Earth, they adapted Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiment to moral terms. They showed that if moral terms could pick out different properties on a twin Earth, then synthetic moral naturalism faces serious problems. This thought experiment has been called the "central difficulty" against an objection against Moore's "open question argument" against moral naturalism.
Horgan's approach to supervenience of moral truths on natural truths, relying on "superdupervenience", has been influential.
In subsequent work, Horgan and Timmons defended cognitivist expressivism. This hybrid theory holds that moral judgments are cognitive states but not descriptive representations of stance-independent facts. Rather, they express evaluative attitudes while still being truth-apt under minimalist semantics. This approach explains the objectivity-like feel of moral discourse without positing robust moral facts.

Decision theory

Regarding Newcomb's problem, Horgan supports one-boxing, but believes that this cannot be demonstrated to be the only rational solution to the problem, because it is a "deep antinomy of practical reason" where both solutions are supported by principles that are constitutive of practical rationality.

Epistemology

Horgan is critical of Bayesian formal epistemology, saying that "there is no such psychological state as the agent's credence in " and that Bayesian epistemology is "like alchemy and phlogiston theory: it is not about any real phenomena, and thus it also is not about any genuine norms that govern real phenomena".
Together with David Henderson, Horgan has proposed an epistemology called "transglobal reliabilism", which proposes that a belief is justified only if the process that produced it is robustly reliable across a broad set of worlds that are experientially like ours. This view has been criticized for illegitimately assuming that there are more truth-friendly such worlds than deceptive ones, as well as for proposing an unnecessary requirement for justification. Henderson and Horgan have also proposed a modified version, called "transglobal evidentialism-reliabilism", together with Matjaž Potrč.

Theory of truth

Horgan has developed, often with Robert Barnard and Matjaž Potrč, a non-deflationary correspondence account on which truth is always a matter of correspondence with reality, but the correspondence can be either direct or indirect/mediated. On this view, the truth of a statement is its semantic correctness under the contextually operative standards that connect language and thought to the world; different discourses can therefore realize truth via different, sometimes indirect, ways of corresponding to facts.
The indirect-correspondence component is tied to Horgan and Potrč's "contextual semantics" and their austere realism, which seeks a minimal ontology while preserving the abundant truth of ordinary and scientific discourse. On this picture, many everyday claims can be literally true even if the ontology denies the corresponding entities as fundamental, because their truth is a matter of mediated correspondence given ordinary semantic standards.
Horgan and Barnard describe their position as a form of correspondence pluralism: truth always consists in correspondence, but there are different forms of correspondence across domains. They argue that this preserves a robust, unified notion of truth while allowing variation in how truth is realized. Secondary overviews classify Horgan's view alongside pluralist theories that maintain correspondence while allowing different ways of corresponding; the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explicitly cites Horgan and collaborators in presenting this family of positions.
Reception and discussion emphasize both the robustness and the indirect character of Horgan's correspondence account. Michael P. Lynch analyzes Horgan's "contextual semantics" and labels the overall view "Indirect Correspondence Metaphysical Realism," highlighting its commitment to realism combined with mediated standards for truth. A review of Truth and Pluralism: Current Debates likewise characterizes Barnard & Horgan's contribution as defending a view on which truth is always correspondence but "rarely" direct.

Works

This is a list of works by Terence Horgan.

Books (authored/co-authored)

Essays on Paradoxes The Epistemological Spectrum Austere Realism: Contextual Semantics Meets Minimal Ontology
  • ''Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology''

Selected major papers

Supervenience, physicalism, and mind

  • "From Supervenience to Superdupervenience: Meeting the Demands of a Material World," Mind 102 : 555–586
  • "Supervenience and Microphysics," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 63 : 29–43
  • "Mental Quausation," Philosophical Perspectives 3 : 47–76

Philosophy of language and semantics

  • "Attitudinatives," Linguistics and Philosophy 12 : 133–165

Metaethics (Moral Twin Earth and related)

  • "New Wave Moral Realism Meets Moral Twin Earth," Journal of Philosophical Research 16 : 447–465
  • "Troubles for New Wave Moral Semantics: The ‘Open Question Argument’ Revived," Philosophical Papers 21 : 153–175
  • "Troubles on Moral Twin Earth: Moral Queerness Revived," Synthese 92 : 221–260
  • "Copping Out on Moral Twin Earth," Synthese 124 : 139–152

Phenomenology and intentionality

  • "The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality," in D. J. Chalmers, Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings, 520–533
  • "Original Intentionality is Phenomenal Intentionality," The Monist 96 : 232–251
  • "Phenomenal Intentionality Meets the Extended Mind," The Monist 91 : 347–373

Vagueness and sorites

Decision theory and paradoxes

  • "Generalized Conditionalization and the Sleeping Beauty Problem," Erkenntnis 78 : 333–351
  • "Generalized Conditionalization and the Sleeping Beauty Problem, II," Erkenntnis 80 : 811–839
  • "Newcomb’s Problem Revisited," Harvard Review of Philosophy 22 : 4–15

Philosophy of science and mathematics

  • "Science Nominalized," Philosophy of Science 51 : 529–549
  • "Science Nominalized Properly," Philosophy of Science 54 : 281–282

Knowledge argument / qualia

  • "Jackson on Physical Information and Qualia," The Philosophical Quarterly 34 : 147–152