Malcolm;[1] but the sharp attacks in the last decade on Malcolm's assumptions have led some philosophers to suppose that Descartes' dreaming problem is a cogent support for scepticism. [2] In this paper, I hope to dispose of the problem without using controversial assumptions of the sort used by Malcolm.

O SET THE STAGE for the discussion[1], I will rehearse and clarify a well-known dispute between A. J. Ayer and J. L. Austin concerning whether perceptual judgments are inferences. Both in his Sense and Sensibilia[2] and in his "Other Minds,"[3] Austin carefully distinguishes recognizing that p from inferring that p. For the purpose of comparing his position to Ayer's, we might put his basic claim in this way: given the way words such as "recognize" and "infer" are used outside philosophical (...) discussions, one clearly distinguishes instances of recognizing from instances of inferring. Yet Ayer does not dispute that, but replies that while non-philosophers do make a sharp distinction between the two, it is arbitrary for philosophical purposes.[4] Claims based upon one's having recognized something are sufficiently like claims based upon one's having inferred, Ayer supposes, that it is useful to treat them as instances of a common category. So the issue is not whether the distinction is recognized outside philosophical circles, but whether it is a defensible and useful one to make. Clearly, Austin insists upon the distinction because he supposes that failing to make it will promote philosophical confusion; indeed, he argues that one traditional problem of skepticism is largely due to this confusion.[5] In his "Other Minds," Austin tries to suggest how recognizing differs from inferring by showing how the sorts of questions or challenges brought to bear differ between the two sorts of claim:[6] for inferences, one wants a rehearsal of the pieces of evidence and an account of their connections to the judgment; for perceptual claims of recognition, one explores whether the observer had the opportunity to see what he claimed to have seen, whether he had acquired the expertise to recognize the sort of thing he claimed to have seen, and whether the circumstances were free of evident distraction and defect. But his readers' appreciation of these things depends. (shrink)

Since the most promising path to a solution to the problem of skepticism regarding perceptual knowledge seems to rest on a sharp distinction between perceiving and inferring, I begin by clarifying and defending that distinction. Next, I discuss the chief obstacle to success by this path, the difficulty in making the required distinction between merely logical possibilities that one is mistaken and the real (Austin) or relevant (Dretske) possibilities which would exclude knowledge. I argue that this distinction cannot be drawn (...) in the ways Austin and Dretske suggest without begging the questions at issue. Finally, I sketch and defend a more radical way of identifying relevant possibilities that is inspired by Austin's controversial suggestion of a parallel between saying I know and saying I promise: a claim of knowledge of some particular matter is relative to a context in which questions about the matter have been raised. (shrink)

A LTHOUGH the notion of a Form is important to Plato's theory, it is difficult to understand what these Forms are supposed to be and why Plato is convinced they exist. So I'll try, first, to help you make sense out of the doctrine of the Forms. Then I will try to show that this abstract doctrine is responsible for some concrete implications.

In the sketch of his (discontinuous) envelope argument in his Some Main Problems of Philosophy (Macmillan: 1953), Moore treats the various phrases, "appears to be," "appears like a thing would appear if it were presented in a certain way," as though they were synonymous. Austin, in the fourth chapter of his Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford: 1962), tries to call to our attention the fact that these philosophically favorite phrases are not interchangeable; as a result, if an argument is begun by (...) using one phrase and then a different one is substituted without argument, the person equivocates and the argument fails. (shrink)

To begin with, we need to separate off the easy talk of “rights” in which they seem automatically to correspond with a person’s duties or obligations. It is of course true that since I have a duty not to wreak murder or mayhem on you, you have the corresponding right that I not do these things. But so far, the talk of “rights” is simply an alternative way to speak of someone else’s duties; the special or unique point to a (...) “right” would seem to be that it places in its possessor’s hands the power to decide whether another person’s obligation toward him may be waived or not. I wouldn’t be able to waive my right to your not murdering me; although I could waive your right to be extraordinarily careful not to cause me harm—as I imagine boxers do (within the limits of the agreed-upon rules) or patients do who will be subjected to experimental therapies and sign consent forms or skydivers do who agree to be dropped from planes at high altitudes. A right places a constraint on the corresponding obligation. (shrink)

I think that one of the main objections to be made to Ayer's verifiability criterion is simply the mechanical way in which it is designed to work: supposedly, a philosopher need not study, for example, how religious assertions are used, nor what sorts of illumination their users take themselves to be shedding on the human condition; instead, Ayer imagines that we can test them in a simple way that requires us to do no exploration whatever. This, surely, is hubris; and (...) that accounts for much of the very angry and passionate reaction which Ayer's criterion provoked. (shrink)

I think that van Inwagen's argument is invalid because it equivocates on the modal auxiliaries. To give a quick idea of what I think has gone wrong, consider for comparison two arguments which are transparently invalid, though they superficially resemble Modus Tollens arguments: (a) If Lincoln was honest, he couldn't have pocketed the penny (such taking being dishonest). (b) But it is false that Lincoln could not have pocketed the penny: after all, he was not paralyzed and did not fail (...) to realize that the penny was (slightly) valuable and would be his for the taking. (c) Therefore, Lincoln was not honest. (a') If determinism is correct, then if various past events had occurred earlier, the judge could not have raised his hand at the time of the execution (since doing so would be inconsistent with the behavior issuing from and predictable from those earlier events). (b') But it is false that the judge could not have raised his hand at the time of the execution: for he was not paralyzed or unconscious-- he certainly possessed the power to move his hand. (c') Therefore, since the various past events did occur earlier, determinism is not correct. (shrink)

Consider Dretske's measles example (from page 74 in his Knowldege and the Flow of Information (MIT/Bradford: 1981) ): since the question of whether Alice's being one of Herman's children carries the information that she has the measles is a question about conditional probabilities, we must be careful about our specification of the condition, the antecedent. Although we are to suppose that it is a true generalization that all of Herman's children have the measles, since that is a coincidence, we can (...) just as well suppose that Alice is an only child with the measles. It is of course true that the conditional probability of Alice's having measles given that she has the measles is 1; but that is not relevant to the question Dretske raises. In Dretske's example, the question is whether Alice's being Herman's child carries the information that she has measles. And so the relevant condition in this example is simply Alice's being Herman's child. While it is in fact true that Alice has the measles, that isn't part of the condition: for the question is, "how probable is the one state of affairs given some other state of affairs,". (shrink)

ESCARTES was born at the end of the sixteenth century, a time of enormous changes in the western intellectual world, largely brought about by the Reformation. Luther had denied the Church's authority to settle disputes on matters of faith: it was, he had insisted, the Scriptures alone which carry authority; pronouncements of the church, even those with long tradition behind them, were mere opinion, not truth. And so the question was explicitly raised and debated, how does one..

The term 'explicatum' has been suggested by the following two usages. Kant calls a judgment explicative if the predicate is obtained by analysis, of the subject. Husserl, in speaking about the synthesis of identification between a confused, nonarticulated sense and a subsequently intended distinct, articulated sense, calls the latter the 'Explikat' of the former. (For both uses see Dictionary Of Philosophy [1942], ed. D. Runes, p. 105). What I mean by 'explicandum' and 'explicatum' is to some extent similar to what (...) C. H. Langford calls 'analysandum' and 'analysans': "the analysis then states an appropriate relation of equivalence between the analysandum and the analysans" ("The notion of analysis in Moore's philosophy", in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore [1943], ed. P. A. Schilpp, pp. 321-42; see p. 323); he says that the motive of an analysis "is usually that of supplanting a relatively vague idea by a more precise one" (ibid., p. 329). (shrink)

Note on the tables: The agents represented by the rows and by the columns are choosing simultaneously and independently; each square represents the outcome of such a pair of choices. Column-chooser's payoff is shown in the top-right portion of a square; Row-chooser's payoff is shown in the bottom-left portion of a square. Each chooser knows what the payoffs would be for each set of concurrent choices and knows that the other chooser also knows. Because an outcome depends upon the combination (...) of choices, each chooser must anticipate what the other will choose given that other person's likely anticipation of what the first chooser will do. (shrink)

Taking an analytic and historical approach, this work develops and defends Althusserian critical theory. This theory, it is argued, produces knowledge of how a particular class of people, in a particular time, in a particular place, is dominated, oppressed, or exploited. Moreover, without relying on a general notion of human emancipation, concrete critical theory can suggest political means for the alleviation of these conditions. Because it puts Althusser's ideas in dialogue with contemporary social science and philosophy, the book as a (...) whole makes contributions to Althusser studies, to Anglo-American political philosophy, and to current debates in the philosophy of the social sciences. (shrink)

An analysis of the development and range of Adorno's aesthetics, incorporating the influence of other thinkers and musicians.

Critics of SRI have said little about the integrity of corporate representations resulting in screening inclusion or exclusion. This is surprising given social and environmental accounting research that finds corporate posturing and deception in the absence of external verification, and a parallel body of literature describing corporate "greenwashing" and other forms of corporate disinformation. In this paper I argue that the problems and challenges of ensuring fair and accurate corporate social reporting mirror those accompanying corporate compliance with law. Similarities and (...) points of convergence between social reporting and corporate compliance are discussed, along with proposals for reform. (shrink)

Efforts to institutionalize ethics in corporations have been discussed without first addressing the desirability of norm conformity or the possibility that the means used to elicit conformity will be coercive. This article presents a theoretical context, grounded in models of social control, within which ethics initiatives may be evaluated. Ethics initiatives are discussed in relation to variables that already exert control in the workplace, such as environmental controls, organizational controls, and personal controls.

The logical properties of the 'if-then' connective of ordinary English differ markedly from the logical properties of the material conditional of classical, two-valued logic. This becomes apparent upon examination of arguments in conversational English which involve (noncounterfactual) usages of if-then'. A nonclassical system of propositional logic is presented, whose conditional connective has logical properties approximating those of 'if-then'. This proposed system reduces, in a sense, to the classical logic. Moreover, because it is equivalent to a certain nonstandard three-valued logic, its (...) decision procedure is almost as efficient as that of the classical logic. It therefore provides a rational and convenient system in which to formalize English arguments. (shrink)

William S. Robinson has for many years written insightfully about the mind-body problem. In Understanding Phenomenal Consciousness he focuses on sensory experience and perception qualities such as colours, sounds and odours to present a dualistic view of the mind, called Qualitative Event Realism, that goes against the dominant materialist views. This theory is relevant to the development of a science of consciousness which is now being pursued not only by philosophers but by researchers in psychology and the brain sciences. (...) This provocative book will interest students and professionals who work in the philosophy of mind and will also have cross-disciplinary appeal in cognitive psychology and the brain sciences. (shrink)

_Essays on Beauvoir’s influences, contemporary engagements, and legacy in the philosophical tradition._.

We characterize some large cardinal properties, such as μ-measurability and P 2 (κ)-measurability, in terms of ultrafilters, and then explore the Rudin-Keisler (RK) relations between these ultrafilters and supercompact measures on P κ (2 κ ). This leads to the characterization of 2 κ -supercompactness in terms of a measure on measure sequences, and also to the study of a certain natural subset, Full κ , of P κ (2 κ ), whose elements code measures on cardinals less than κ. (...) The hypothesis that Full κ is stationary (a weaker assumption than 2 κ -supercompactness) is equivalent to a higher order Lowenheim-Skolem property, and settles a question about directed versus chain-type unions on P κ λ. (shrink)

We characterize some large cardinal properties, such as $\mu$-measurability and $P^2(\kappa)$-measurability, in terms of ultrafilters, and then explore the Rudin-Keisler (RK) relations between these ultrafilters and supercompact measures on $P_\kappa(2^\kappa)$. This leads to the characterization of $2^\kappa$-supercompactness in terms of a measure on measure sequences, and also to the study of a certain natural subset, $\mathrm{Full}_\kappa$, of $P_\kappa(2^\kappa)$, whose elements code measures on cardinals less than $\kappa$. The hypothesis that $\mathrm{Full}_\kappa$ is stationary (a weaker assumption than $2^\kappa$-supercompactness) is equivalent to (...) a higher order Lowenheim-Skolem property, and settles a question about directed versus chain-type unions on $P_\kappa\lambda$. (shrink)

Horton and Gerrig outlined a memory-based processing model of conversational common ground that provided a description of how speakers could both strategically and automatically gain access to information about others through domain-general memory processes acting over ordinary memory traces. In this article, we revisit this account, reviewing empirical findings that address aspects of this memory-based model. In doing so, we also take the opportunity to clarify what we believe this approach implies about the cognitive psychology of common ground, and just (...) as important, what it does not imply. We also highlight related areas of research demonstrating how general cognitive processes can constrain access to relevant knowledge in ways that shape both language production and comprehension. (shrink)

In this essay I will examine the development of the notion of transcendence in Blanchot's early critical writings. Doing so indicates the radical way that Blanchot reconfigures this central ontological and theological term by way of his readings of the literary use of language. In turn this exposes the essential relation between finitude and literature, something which the second part of the essay will examine by way of Heidegger's study of the myth of Er.

First-order logic. The origin of modern foundational studies. Frege's system and the paradoxes. The teory of types. Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. Hilbert's program and Godel's incompleteness theorems. The foundational systems of W.V. Quine. Categorical algebra.

Examines poetic language in the work of Heidegger, Hölderlin, and Blanchot.

This article defends epiphenomenalism against criticisms raised in Dwayne Moore’s “On Robinson’s Response to the Self-Stultifying Objection”.

Consideration of the work of Sade in relation to Adorno usually refers to the much-discussed chapter from Dialektik der Aufklärung. But Adorno made a number of other remarks across his career that suggest a very different reading. I will discuss the three most significant of these remarks and show how they develop an approach to the libidinal aspect of aesthetic experience that challenges our understanding of the relation of thought and language. In doing so, Sade’s works indicate an extraordinary liberation (...) of the dialectic of natural-history through a mimesis of desire, which is made apparent in what Sade’s texts literally present; in their contingency and also their facticity. (shrink)

Unlike his other fictional works Blanchot’s 1953 narrative Celui qui ne m’accompagnait pas has received comparatively little attention. The reasons for this would seem to lie in the intense abstraction of his writing in this work, which is forbidding even by his own standards, but as I will show, this intensity can be understood as comprising a singular topography of the experience of writing. Blanchot’s narrative thereby becomes a very precise and concrete form of aesthetics, which can be usefully compared (...) to the understandings of melancholy developed by Benjamin and Adorno, but transposed into a more stringent modernist context. (shrink)

Silent thinking is often accompanied by subvocal sayings to ourselves, imagery, emotional feelings, and non-sensory experiences such as familiarity, rightness, and confidence that we can go on in certain ways. Phenomenological materials of these kinds, along with our dispositions to give explanations or draw inferences, provide resources that are sufficient to account for our knowledge of what we think, desire, and so on. We do not need to suppose that there is a distinctive, non-imagistic 'what it is like' to think (...) that p, and a different non-imagistic 'what it is like' to think that q. Nor need we suppose that there is a proprietary 'what it is like' to have one propositional attitude type rather than another. (shrink)

Contemporaries often reject epiphenomenalism out of hand, while Russellian Monism is regarded as worthy of further development. It is argued here that this difference of attitudes is indefensible, because the easy rejection of EPI is due to its violating a certain Causal Intuition, and RM implicitly violates that same intuition. An enriched version of RM mitigates the violation, but the same mitigation results if we make a parallel enrichment of EPI. If RM and EPI are approached on a level playing (...) field, it is not obvious which will prove to be the better view. (shrink)

Silent thinking is often accompanied by subvocal sayings to ourselves, imagery, emotional feelings, and non-sensory experiences such as familiarity, rightness, and confidence that we can go on in certain ways. Phenomenological materials of these kinds, along with our dispositions to give explanations or draw inferences, provide resources that are sufficient to account for our knowledge of what we think, desire, and so on. We do not need to suppose that there is a distinctive, non-imagistic ‘what it is like’ to think (...) that p, and a different non-imagistic ‘what it is like’ to think that q. Nor need we suppose that there is a proprietary ‘what it is like’ to have one propositional attitude type rather than another. (shrink)

This book presents and survey of the foundations of mathematics. The emphasis is on a mathematical comparison of systems rather than on any exhaustive development of analysis within a single system. Nevertheless, for most systems considered, enough details are given for the development of arithmetic, and the method of constructing the other notions of analysis is indicated. The elements of the general theory of cardinal and ordinal numbers are also furnished in the course of this work.

The formal systems of logic have ordinarily been regarded as independent of biology, but recent developments in evolutionary theory suggest that biology and logic may be intimately interrelated. In this book, William Cooper outlines a theory of rationality in which logical law emerges as an intrinsic aspect of evolutionary biology. This biological perspective on logic, though at present unorthodox, could change traditional ideas about the reasoning process. Cooper examines the connections between logic and evolutionary biology and illustrates how logical (...) rules are derived directly from evolutionary principles, and therefore have no independent status of their own. Laws of decision theory, utility theory, induction, and deduction are reinterpreted as natural consequences of evolutionary processes. Cooper's connection of logical law to evolutionary theory ultimately results in a unified foundation for an evolutionary science of reason. It will be of interest to professionals and students of philosophy of science, logic, evolutionary theory, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Le Dernier Homme is Blanchot’s last narrative or récit. Afterwards, he would begin to write in a more fragmentary mode, which suggests that he may have felt that the narrative form had been pushed as far it could in this work. This point of extremity is marked in particular by the monotonous style for which he has become notorious. This essay examines why this style arises, and how it leads to an extreme that can be usefully contrasted with Barthes’s notion (...) of écriture blanche. It becomes apparent that the blankness of this writing is not innocent but arises as noise for Blanchot, which not only manifests the material attenuation of the narrative but also its relation with the dead. (shrink)