The author puts forth an approach to propositional attitude contexts based upon the view that one does not have beliefs of ordinary extensional entitiessimpliciter. Rather, one has beliefs of such entities as presented in various manners. Roughly, these are treated as beliefs of ordered pairs — the first member of which is the ordinary extensional entity and the second member of which is a predicate that it satisfies. Such an approach has no difficulties with problems involving identity, such as of (...) The Morning Star and The Evening Star (section 1). Given the second members of the pairs, the modes of presentation, it is quite natural to allow exportation everywhere. There is no need for essentialism. (One also can have non-essentialistic modal logic if one grants analyticity or the like.) (section 2). Given that the second member of the pair need only be one that is satisfied by the entity that is the first member (and need not be specificative), the method has no difficulties when one is concerned only with discriminations (and not specifications) (section 3). When this method is combined with the Frege-Carnap method of descriptions, fictional entities can be accommodated; Goodman''s unicorn-picture and the like can be brought within a Tarskian semantics; and Geach''s difficulties with intentional identity appear to be handled (section 4). Given the author''s ordered pair construals, there appears to be no additional need for notional construals; i.e., the author''s one unified method appears satisfactory for dealing with both traditionalde re (relational) andde dicto (notional) construals. The Paradox of the Knower and the like do not appear formulatable against the author''s approach. (section 5). The author also argues against the basic principles behind the Church-Langford translation argument (section 6). (shrink)

The main purpose of the article is to get clear what Leibniz's concerns about relations were. His: I do not believe that you will admit an accident that is in two subjects at the same time. My judgement about relations is that paternity in David is one thing, sonship in Solomon another, but that the relation common to both is a merely mental thing whose basis is the modifications of the individuals is best seen as akin to: Father is true (...) of David. Son is true of Solomon. But Being a father of is not true of any individual. Leibniz, like modern nominalist Nelson Goodman, could not allow the ordered pair . To establish this I must argue against Hidé Ishiguro's claim that Leibniz should have straightforwardly constructed a logic of relations, and Jaakko Hintikka's claim that Leibniz could have allowed the use of relational predicates in such forms as (Ex) Rax and (Ey) Ryb. I must also argue that what they say about the windowlessness doctrine (especially the as if formulation) is beside the point. (shrink)

We have considered two strategies for using native utterances as evidence for assigning native beliefs. We have shown that each of these two strategies can avoid the logical difficulties mentioned in section 1 - so long, at least, as we employ an account of the logical form of belief sentences developed by Burdick. We have also considered the methodological principles which provide the basis for translational practice. Based on our consideration of these principles, we then argued that we must (...) prefer the literalist strategy for attributing beliefs. Only the literalist strategy enables us to provide a recursive account of the significance of native utterances, and only the literalist strategy enables us to maximize the truth of our claims about native beliefs. (shrink)

In Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes, Quine held (a) that the rule of exportation is always admissible, and (b) that there is a significant distinction between a believes-true (Ex)Fx and (Ex) a believes-true F of x. An argument of Hintikka's, also urged by Sleigh, persuaded him that these two intuitions are incompatible; and he consequently repudiated the rule of exportation. Hintikka and Kaplan propose to restrict exportation and quantifying in to favoured contexts — Hintikka to contexts where the believer knows who (...) or what the person or thing in question is; Kaplan to contexts where the believer possesses a vivid name of the person or thing in question. The bulk of this paper is taken up with criticisms of these proposals. Its ultimate purpose, however, is to motivate an alternative approach, which imposes no restrictions on exportation or quantifying in, but repudiates Quine's other intuition: this is the approach taken in my A Logical Form for the Propositional Attitudes. (shrink)

Using the method of ordered pairs proposed in my 'A Logical Form for the Propositional Attitudes', a non-essentialistic modal logic is possible which avoids these oddities.

Davidson''s theory of interpretation, I argue, is vulnerable to a number of significant difficulties, difficulties which can be avoided or resolved by the more Quinean approach which I develop. In Section 1 I note difficulties which apply to T-theories but are avoided by translation manuals. In Section 2 I show how to construct what I call T-manuals, which are like T-theories in requiring Tarskian structure, but like translation manuals in avoiding the difficulties discussed in Section 1. In Section 3 I (...) show that the approach using T-manuals does at least as well as Davidson''s with respect to a number of other concerns of his. In Section 4 I show that it does better than Davidson''s with respect to reporting interpretations, especially where demonstrative utterances are concerned. In Section 5 I argue for (somewhat modified) Quinean empirical constraints, which go with manuals, as superior to the empirical constraints Davidson imposes, which go with T-theories. In Section 6 I show that Davidson is unable to offer an adequate account of what an interpreter knows; and propose a more acceptable theory of language mastery which gives a central role to the requirement that the interpreter''s language usage satisfy the refined and amplified Quinean empirical constraints of Section 5. (shrink)

The loss of the federally protected constitutional right to an abortion is a threat to the already tenuous autonomy of pregnant people, and may augur future challenges to their right to refuse unwanted obstetric interventions. Even before Roe’s demise, pregnancy led to constraints on autonomy evidenced by clinician-led legal incursions against patients who refused obstetric interventions. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court found that the right to liberty espoused in the Constitution does not extend to a (...) pregnant person’s right to an abortion. With Roe’s demise, the right to request specific types of care has been vitiated. The same argument underpinning that holding may now become ballast for attacks on the traditionally more robust right, the right to refuse. Here we discuss how the elevation of fetal and embryonic rights may lead to a cascade of medical intrusions and deprivations of liberty against pregnant persons, and offer an argument opposing these improprieties. (shrink)

In ‘Induction and Natural Kinds’, I proposed a solution to the problem of induction according to which our use of inductive inference is reliable because it is grounded in the natural kind structure of the world. When we infer that unobserved members of a kind will have the same properties as observed members of the kind, we are right because all members of the kind possess the same essential properties. The claim that the existence of natural kinds is what grounds (...) reliable use of induction is based on an inference to the best explanation of the success of our inductive practices. As such, the argument for the existence of natural kinds employs a form of ampliative inference. But induction is likewise a form of ampliative inference. Given both of these facts, my account of the reliability of induction is subject to the objection that it provides a circular justification of induction, since it employs an ampliative inference to justify an ampliative inference. In this paper, I respond to the objection of circularity by arguing that what justifies induction is not the inference to the best explanation of its reliability. The ground of induction is the natural kinds themselves. (shrink)

A brief article on faith as a psychological attitude.

The chapter introduces and characterizes the notion of fittingness. It charts the history of the relation and its relevance to contemporary debates in normative and metanormative philosophy and proceeds to survey issues to do with fittingness covered in the volume’s chapters, including the nature and epistemology of fittingness, the relations between fittingness and reasons, the normativity of fittingness, fittingness and value theory, and the role of fittingness in theorizing about responsibility. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of issues to (...) do with fittingness that aren’t covered extensively by the volume’s chapters in order to indicate avenues for further research. (shrink)

The critique of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) liver allocation policy by Kenneth Himma has flaws related to the complexities and evolutionary nature of the field. Recent improvements in transplantation have achieved national attention of this sort. There has been an evolution, unequaled elsewhere in medicine, of a national data set and national rules. The transplant community might have been more effective in communicating the details of this, and the problems associated with organ allocation policy. The novelty and (...) complexity of the new rules understandably can produce misleading conclusions. (shrink)

It has been repeatedly argued, most recently by Nicholas Maxwell, that the special theory of relativity is incompatible with the view that the future is in some degree undetermined; and Maxwell contends that this is a reason to reject that theory. In the present paper, an analysis is offered of the notion of indeterminateness (or "becoming") that is uniquely appropriate to the special theory of relativity, in the light of a set of natural conditions upon such a notion; and reasons (...) are given for regarding this conception as (not just formally consistent with relativity theory, but also) philosophically reasonable. The bearings upon Maxwell's program for quantum theory are briefly considered. (shrink)

Published in 1982 by CUP (pb. 2009) it discusses the forms of materialism then current, including Davidson, early Rorty, but concentrating on Smart and Armstrong, and arguing that central state materialism fails to give a better 'occurrent' account of conscious states than does behaviourism/functionalism, as Armstrong claims. The book starts with a version of the 'knowledge argument' and ends with a chapter claiming that our conception of matter/the physical is more problematic than our conception of mind.

This chapter starts by restating the causal-hallucinatory argument against naive realism. This argument depends on the possibility of “philosophers' hallucinations.” It draws attention to the role of what the chapter refers to as the nonarbitrariness of philosophers' hallucinations in supporting this argument. The chapter then discusses three attempts to refute the argument. Two of them, those associated with John McDowell and with Michael Martin, are explicitly forms of disjunctivism. The third, exemplified by Mark Johnston, has, the chapter claims, disjunctivist features. (...) None of these responses to the argument is plausible. (shrink)

It is common for young Christians to go off to college assured in their beliefs but, in the course of their first year or two, they meet what appears to them to be powerful defenses of scientific naturalism and crushing critiques of the basic Christian story (BCS), and many are thrown into doubt. They think to themselves something like this: "To be honest, I am troubled about the BCS. While the problem of evil, the apparent cultural basis for the diversity (...) of religions, the explanatory breadth of contemporary science, naturalistic explanations of religious experience and miracle reports, and textual and historical criticism of the Bible, among other things, don’t make me believe the BCS is false , I am in serious doubt about it, so much so that I lack belief of it. In that case, how can I have Christian faith? And if I don’t have faith, how can I keep on praying, attending church, affirming the creed, confessing my sins, taking the sacraments, singing the hymns and songs, and so on? I can’t, unless I’m a hypocrite. So integrity requires me to drop the whole thing and get out." Of course, our student is not alone. Many Christians find themselves for some portion of their lives somewhere on the trajectory from doubt to getting out. Indeed, Christians in the West struggle with intellectual doubt more than they used to, especially university-educated Christians. What should we say to them? Some will say “Get out!,” welcoming the development as a path to liberation. We explore a different response in this essay. (shrink)

Background: Current practice frequently fails to provide care consistent with the preferences of decisionally-incapacitated patients. It also imposes significant emotional burden on their surrogates. Algorithmic-based patient preference predictors (PPPs) have been proposed as a possible way to address these two concerns. While previous research found that patients strongly support the use of PPPs, the views of surrogates are unknown. The present study thus assessed the views of experienced surrogates regarding the possible use of PPPs as a means to help make (...) treatment decisions for decisionally-incapacitated patients. -/- Methods: This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to determine the views of experienced surrogates [n=26] who were identified from two academic medical centers and two community hospitals. The primary outcomes were respondents’ overall level of support for the idea of using PPPs and the themes related to their views on how a PPP should be used, if at all, in practice. -/- Results: Overall, 21 participants supported the idea of using PPPs. The remaining five indicated that they would not use a PPP because they made decisions based on the patient’s best interests, not based on substituted judgment. Major themes which emerged were that surrogates, not the patient’s preferences, should determine how treatment decisions are made, and concern that PPPs might be used to deny expensive care or be biased against minority groups. -/- Conclusions: Surrogates, like patients, strongly support the idea of using PPPs to help make treatment decisions for decisionally-incapacitated patients. These findings provide support for developing a PPP and assessing it in practice. At the same time, patients and surrogates disagree over whose preferences should determine how treatment decisions are made, including whether to use a PPP. These findings reveal a fundamental disagreement regarding the guiding principles for surrogate decision-making. Future research is needed to assess this disagreement and consider ways to address it. (shrink)

Whereas traditional nominalists accept the realist's challenge to solve a 'Problem of Universals', the Ostrich Nominalist responds that there is no such Problem to answer. I suggest that Ostrich Nominalist arguments expose a genuine flaw in the realist project. However, I argue, Ostrich Nominalism is ultimately defeated by a problem about the analysis of qualitative sameness and difference. Qualitative sameness and difference are adequately understood only as sameness or difference in some respect. The need to say what these respects of (...) sameness and difference are (if not universals) constitutes a genuine Problem of Universals; consequently—I claim—the Ostrich Nominalist is mistaken. (shrink)

A survey of Howard Gardner's contributions to our understanding of learning, and how to create environments that support growth in all learners across the lifespan.

The idea that science is objective, or able to achieve objectivity, is in large part responsible for the role that science plays within society. But what is objectivity? The idea of objectivity is ambiguous. This paper distinguishes between three basic forms of objectivity. The first form of objectivity is ontological objectivity: the world as it is in itself does not depend upon what we think about it; it is independent of human thought, language, conceptual activity or experience. The second form (...) of objectivity is the objectivity of truth: truth does not depend upon what we believe or justifiably believe; truth depends upon the way reality itself is. The third form of objectivity is epistemic objectivity: this form of objectivity resides in the scientific method which ensures that subjective factors are excluded, and only epistemically relevant factors play a role in scientific inquiry. The paper considers two problems that arise for the notion of epistemic objectivity: the theory-dependence of observation and the variability of the methods of science. It is argued that the use of shared standard procedures ensures the objectivity of observation despite theory-dependence. It is argued that the variability of methods need not lead to epistemic relativism about science. The paper concludes with the realist suggestion that the best explanation of the success of the sciences is that the methods employed in the sciences are highly reliable truth-conducive tools of inquiry. The objectivity of the methods of the sciences leads to the objective truth about the objective world. (shrink)

An exploration of Immanuel Kant's account of war and the controversies that have arisen from its interpretation. This book brings the ideas of Kant's critical philosophy to bear on one of the leading political and legal questions of our age: under what circumstances, if any, is recourse to war legally and morally justifiable?

This paper explores the scientific viability of the concept of causality—by questioning a central element of the distinction between “fundamental” and non-fundamental physics. It will be argued that the prevalent emphasis on fundamental physics involves formalistic and idealized partial models of physical regularities abstracting from and idealizing the causal evolution of physical systems. The accepted roles of partial models and of the special sciences in the growth of knowledge help demonstrate proper limitations of the concept of fundamental physics. We expect (...) that a cause precedes its effect. But in some tension with this point, fundamental physical law is often held to be symmetrical and all-encompassing. Physical time, however, has not only measurable extension, as with spatial dimensions, it also has a direction—from the past through the present into the future. This preferred direction is time’s arrow. In spite of this standard contrast of time with space, if all the fundamental laws of physics are symmetrical, they are indifferent to time’s arrow. In consequence, excessive emphasis on the ideal of symmetrical, fundamental laws of physics generates skepticism regarding the common-sense and scientific uses of the concept of causality. The expectation has been that all physical phenomena are capable of explanation and prediction by reference to fundamental physicals laws—so that the laws and phenomena of statistical thermodynam- ics —and of the special sciences—must be derivative and/or secondary. The most important and oft repeated explanation of time’s arrow, however, is provided by the second law of thermodynamics. This paper explores the prospects for time’s arrow based on the second law. The concept of causality employed here is empirically based, though acknowledging practical scientific interests, and is linked to time’s arrow and to the thesis that there can be no causal change, in any domain of inquiry, without physical interaction. (shrink)

This study considers the role of epistemic turning points in the historiography of sexuality. Disentangling the historical complexity of scientia sexualis, I argue that the late 19th century and the mid-20th century constitute two critical epistemic junctures in the genealogy of sexual liberation, as the notion of free love slowly gave way to the idea of sexual freedom in modern western society. I also explore the value of the Foucauldian approach for the study of the history of sexuality in non-western (...) contexts. Drawing on examples from Republican China (1912—49), I propose that the Foucauldian insight concerning the emergence of a ‘homosexual identity’ in the West can serve as a useful guide for thinking about similar issues in the history of sexuality and the historical epistemology of sexology in modern East Asia. (shrink)

Infallibilism is the view that a belief cannot be at once warranted and false. In this essay we assess three nonpartisan arguments for infallibilism, arguments that do not depend on a prior commitment to some substantive theory of warrant. Three premises, one from each argument, are most significant: if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then the Gettier Problem cannot be solved; if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then its warrant can be transferred (...) to an accidentally true belief; if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then it can be warranted and accidentally true. We argue that each of these is either false or no more plausible than its denial. Along the way, we offer a solution to the Gettier Problem that is compatible with fallibilism. (shrink)

The problem of the ‘Unity of the Proposition’ is the problem of explaining the difference between a content-expressing declarative sentence and a ‘mere list’ of referents. The prevailing view is that such a problem is to be solved metaphysically, either by reducing our ontology to exclude propositions or universals, or by explaining how it is possible for a certain kind of complex entity – the ‘proposition’– to ‘unify’ its constituents. I argue that these metaphysical approaches cannot succeed; instead the only (...) viable approach is linguistic, identifying features of the (type–) sentence itself that enable it to express a content. Thus the problem of the ‘Unity of the Proposition’ (distinguishing sentences from lists) is distinct from the problem of ‘propositional unity’ (explaining how the constituents of propositions form a unified content). I suggest that, while the latter problem is not pressing, the former does not permit of an answer which applies in generality in all languages; we can only fully explain the Unity of the Proposition for single languages or groups of similar languages. (shrink)

The paper takes off from the suggestion of Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen that Kuhn’s account of science may be understood in coherentist terms. There are coherentist themes in Kuhn’s philosophy of science. But one crucial element is lacking. Kuhn does not deny the existence of basic beliefs which have a non-doxastic source of justification. Nor does he assert that epistemic justification only derives from inferential relationships between non-basic beliefs. Despite this, the coherentist interpretation is promising and I develop it further in this (...) paper. I raise the question of whether Kuhn’s account of science can deal with the input objection to coherentism. I argue that the role played by problems in Kuhn’s theory of science ensures that there is input from the external world into scientists’ belief-systems. I follow Hoyningen-Huene in pointing to the causal role played by the external world in determining perceptual states. I next turn to the question of whether Kuhn’s rejection of foundationalism implies coherentism. I argue that Kuhn’s rejection of the one-to-one relation between object and experience is compatible with a foundationalist account of justification. Nor does Kuhn’s rejection of the given entail the same coherentist implications as Sellars’ critique of the myth of the given. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: A Historical Survey with Interviews Moral Skepticism and the Serial Killer A Brief History of Serial Killers Serial Killers of the Ancient World Serial Killers of the Renaissance Serial Killers of the Nineteenth Century Serial Killers of the Early Twentieth Century The Golden Age of Serial Killers Serial Killers Today: Conversations on Motivation.

Alex John London’s new book, For the Common Good: Philosophical Foundations of Research Ethics highlights the fact that establishing just social arrangements is not only a matter of incentivizing popular will to act for the common good; it also requires filling in informational gaps about which policies, arrangements, and interventions will advance the basic interests of members in an equitable, effective and efficient manner. Promoting justice requires, in part, acquiring the knowledge for how to do so. In developing this point, (...) London carefully traces these missteps in the main philosophical debates and then resuscitates the importance of questions of justice at the heart of research ethics. In doing so, it provides a transformative corrective for the field. This review critically examines one of the central pillars of London’s egalitarian research imperative approach: the way in which the social value of research is closely linked with minimizing uncertainty among reasonable experts. (shrink)

A critique of Plantinga's free will defense. For an updated version of this critique, with a reply to objections from William Rowe and Alvin Plantinga, see my "The logical problem of evil: Plantinga and Mackie," in Justin P. McBrayer & Daniel Howard‐Snyder (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, pp. 19-33.

This is a response to Dragan Jakowljewitsch's 'The Successes of Science and Scientific-Theoretical Realism: A Less Than Direct Connection'.

Basic concepts -- Identifying arguments -- Logic and language -- Informal fallacies -- Categorical logic: statements -- Categorical logic: syllogisms -- Statement logic: truth tables -- Statement logic: proofs -- Predicate logic -- Induction -- Probability.

El año 1962 vio la introducción, por parte de Kuhn y Feyerabend, de la tesis de la inconmensurabilidad de las teorías científicas . Desde entonces, la tesis ha sido debatida ampliamente y ha atraído muchos críticos. Su influencia aún es considerable, particularmente en las áreas de la historia y la filosofía de la ciencia interesadas en el cambio y la elección de teorías. Esta influencia se debe, en gran medida, a la inmensa popularidad de la obra maestra de Kuhn, La (...) Estructura de las revoluciones científicas, la cual asegura que la idea de la inconmensurabilidad continúe alcanzando un público amplio. Sin embargo, no es tan ampliamente apreciado que la versión de Kuhn de la inconmensurabilidad ha ido sufriendo, con el tiempo, un proceso continuo de revisión y clarificación. Como resultado de esto, la versión de la tesis por la que Kuhn es mejor conocido difiere notablemente de la versión que él asume en el presente. En este artículo presento un estudio del proceso de cambio, caracterizando las etapas principales por las que transcurre el concepto kuhniano de inconmensurabilidad. (shrink)

This is a comment on Professor Holm Tetens' paper, 'Scientific Objectivity with a Human Face'.

Critical Reflections on Teacher Education argues that educational philosophy can improve the quality of teacher education programs in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The book documents the ways in which the market model of education propagated by governments and outside agencies hastens the decline of philosophy of education and turns teachers into technicians in hierarchical school systems. A grounding in educational philosophy, however, enables future teachers to make informed and qualified judgements defining their professional lives. In a (...) clear and accessible style, Howard Woodhouse uses a combination of reasoned argument and narrative to show that educational philosophy, together with Indigenous knowledge systems, forms the basis of a climate change education capable of educating students about the central issue of our time. (shrink)

Socrates.--Plato.--Aristotle.--Aquinas.--Descartes.--Spinoza.--Locke.--Voltaire.--Kant.--Hegel.--Dew ey.--Russell.