In this paper I propose to set out, and argue for, a theory of what makes acts morally permissible. The claims about morality that I shall be advancing will be minimalist. By this I mean that the scope of the theory will be restricted to as small a class of acts or courses of action as possible, and its bearing on the members of that class to as narrow a range of characteristics as possible. My starting point is that, as (...) Dostoevsky put it, 'everything is permitted'– unless there prove to be good reasons why it cannot be. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

The first section of this paper asks why the notion of consensus has recently come to the fore in the medical humanities, and suggests that the answer is a function of growing technological and professional complexity. The next two sections examine the concept of consensus analytically, citing some of the recent philosophical literature. The fourth section looks at committee deliberations and their desirable outcomes, and questions the degree to which consensus serves those outcomes. In the fifth and last section it (...) is suggested that if I am to subscribe to a consensual outcome responsibly I must be personally committed to it, and that this requires a form of knowledge I call ‘fiduciary’, in this case knowledge of the competence and trustworthiness of other participants in deliberation whose expertise may have influenced my agreement. (shrink)

1. Argument. Questions that have arisen about the “existence” of elementary particles and other entities of physics have often been dismissed as unprofitable, with the tacit assumption that the categories suitable for the discussion of everyday knowledge are not suitable for the discussion of physical knowledge, which requires mathematical treatment. But for the layman who stumbles at the discontinuity between his world and that of mathematical physics, and for the physicist who wishes his knowledge of the world to have some (...) kind of unity, a scheme which will embrace both kinds of knowledge is essential. Such a scheme is developed from a consideration of the dependence on mind, and conceptual modes of thought, common to science and all other intellectual approaches to the world, which is seen clearly in the growth of science from more primitive concepts. It begins with the concept as the most elementary category of the organization of experience, and moves to the construct, a distinctly scientific category arising out of the concept, and the isolate, corresponding to elements of reality not directly perceived. An escape from certain paradoxes generated by the incomplete nature of perceptual experience is thus provided. (shrink)

"These essays are the work of a genial, literate mind exploring a wide range of issues mainly centered on the philosophy of science and epistemology, but including considerations of literature, language, and social practice. Caws's work, in general, represents an independent and alternative current in the philosophy of science, one which is informed by a broader conception of scientific thought and activity than are the usual approaches of either the traditional logical-empiricists or the more recent post-positivists. And he has (...) a knack for deflating the latest fashionable claims early in the game, even before fashion has set in."--Marx Wartofsky, Editor, "The Philosophical Forum". (shrink)

Definition is viewed in this paper as a cohesive element of theory, providing links between scientific constructs. The problem is approached first in terms of three orders--the historical, the logical, and the heuristic--in which the structure of science may be put together; a study of these is necessary if difficulties about priority of definition are to be resolved. The main part of the paper is devoted to an exercise in theory-construction which illustrates the five principal functions of definition--the grounding of (...) constructs in observation, their descriptive interrelation, the development of logico-mathematical calculi, the interpretation of these calculi, and the provision of precise, quasi-mathematical relations between the constructs themselves. Reference is made throughout to the many names for the defining process found in earlier works, and problems of contextual definition, reduction, stipulative and lexical definition, etc., are dealt with briefly. The theory thus constructed is represented diagrammatically. It is shown that the analysis may be simplified, in general terms, by the use of two new categories, "internal" and "external" definition; and that this innovation may prove helpful in clarifying some traditional obscurities, and in preserving a necessary balance between a purely logical and a purely empirical approach to the philosophy of science. (shrink)

THE GENERATION which separates Hempel's latest major publication from his first has seen the philosophy of science come into its own as one of the chief subdivisions of philosophy, with a recognizable and coherent set of problems yielding to a recognizable and coherent set of strategies for solution. Not, of course, that in 1936 the philosophy of science was a new discipline—far from it: if anybody deserves credit for getting the field started it is probably Democritus. Nor that the publication (...) of Der Typusbegriff marked a new era in the development of the subject, the recent literature of which included, after all, The Logic of Modern Physics, Der Logische Aufbau der Welt, and Logik der Forschung. The point which these facts illustrate is simply that Hempel's professional career spans a period of intense activity during which the philosophical discipline to which he has made his greatest contribution arrived at an evident maturity and autonomy. The aim of this essay is to examine his contribution to that activity, and to deal with some recent arguments to the effect that the process of development has carried the philosophy of science away from science itself, on which in some sense or other it clearly depends for its intellectual relevance and honesty. (shrink)

Systematic philosophy has for a long time now been disavowed as an objective or even as an interest by many professional philosophers whose view of their subject regards it as an activity of analysis rather than of construction. That this disclaimer should have become so common at a time when, in other disciplines, the idea of system was coming more and more into prominence suggests that philosophers and other scholars may somehow have been talking at cross-purposes. The opposition of analytic (...) and constructive modes comes out clearly in the pejorative use of expressions like “system-builders,” and a glance at the history of the analytic movement makes it clear that the kind of system it sets itself against is typified by the Hegelian system, the System before which Kierkegaard was on the point of kneeling down, flourishing his handkerchief so as not to get his trousers dirty, only to discover that its completion had been put off until the next Sunday. (shrink)