Online research in philosophy

Imagine playing a game of chess with such poorly carved pieces that it is well nigh impossible to tell the difference between them. The bishops, knights, pawns, etc., are, by your lights, perceptually indistinguishable. Imagine still that your opponent can see these differences quite clearly, much to your dismay. You might be able to begin the game with a memorized opening, perhaps, but it wouldn’t take long to lose track of the ongoings and your resignation would soon follow. It’s not a fair game, to be..

1. A Profession of Faith -- 2. Who or What Decides, for Derrida : A Catastrophic Theory of Decision -- 3. Derrida's Destinerrance -- 4. The Late Derrida -- 5. Derrida's Remains -- 6. Derrida Enisled -- 7. Derrida's Special Theory of Performativity --8. "Don't Count Me In" : Derrida's Refraining -- 9. Derrida's Ethics of Irresponsibilization ; or, How to Get Irresponsible, in Two Easy Lessons -- 10. Derrida's Politics of Autoimmunity -- 11. Touching Derrida's Touching Nancy -- 12. Absolute Mourning : It Is Jacques You Mourn For -- Notes -- Index.

"By linking Wittgenstein with Derrida, Staten suggests that the intellectual relevance of deconstruction is wider than the English-speaking public has...

Games such as the St. Petersburg game present serious problems for decision theory.1 The St. Petersburg game invokes an unbounded utility function to produce an infinite expectation for playing the game. The problem is usually presented as a clash between decision theory and intuition: most people are not prepared to pay a large finite sum to buy into this game, yet this is precisely what decision theory suggests we ought to do. But there is another problem associated with the St. Petersburg game. The problem is that standard decision theory counsels us to be indifferent between any two actions that have infinite expected utility. So, for example, consider the decision problem of whether to play the St. Petersburg game or a game where every payoff is $1 higher. Let’s call this second game the Petrograd game (it’s the same as St. Petersburg but with a bit of twentieth century inflation). Standard decision theory is indifferent between these two options. Indeed, it might be argued that any intuition that the Petrograd game is better than the St. Petersburg game is a result of misguided and na¨ıve intuitions about infinity.2 But this argument against the intuition in question is misguided. The Petrograd game is clearly better than the St. Petersburg game. And what is more, there is no confusion about infinity involved in thinking this. When the series of coin tosses comes to an end (and it comes to an end with probability 1), no matter how many tails precede the first head, the payoff for the Petrograd game is one dollar higher than the St. Petersburg game. Whatever the outcome, you are better off playing the Petrograd game. Infinity has nothing to do with it. Indeed, a straightforward application of dominance reasoning backs up this line of reasoning.3 Standard decision theory.

A number of business writers have argued that business is a game and, like a game, possesses its own special rules for acting. While we do not normally tolerate deceit, bluffing is not merely acceptable but also expected within the game of poker. Similarly, lies of omission, overstatements, puffery and bluffs are morally acceptable within business because it, like a game, has a special ethic which permits these normally immoral practices. Although critics of this reasoning have used deontological and utilitarian arguments to show that deceit in business is just an immoral as it is in any other realm of human practice, little attention has been paid to the fact that the argument is one of analogy. The analogical argument for business' special ethic is only as strong as the alleged similarities between business and game-playing. This paper argues that this analogy is quite weak and incapable of either providing much insight into business or of offering a reason to think that the ethics of business are, or even could be, like those of a game.

Where behavior defies economic analysis, one explanation is that individuals consider more than the immediate payoff. We present evidence that noneconomic factors influence behavior. Attractiveness influences offers in the Ultimatum and Dictator Games. Facial resemblance, a cue of relatedness, increases trusting in a two-node trust game. Only by considering the range of possible influences will game-playing behavior be explained.

Everything about Derrida suggests that he is for a radical reform or transformation of language, whilst Wittgenstein seems to vindicate a fidelity to ordinary language and to want to 'expunge' from language the 'metaphysical use' of words. But just how opposed are they? My contention in this paper is that Wittgenstein does not 'deconstruct', as some critics have rather loosely suggested, because, as we shall see, the expunging of metaphysical use favoured by Wittgenstein does not amount to the deconstruction of metaphysical appurtenance practised by Derrida. However, there are interesting parallels to be drawn between the two philosophers which I shall try to articulate in the course of this paper. The first part provides the background, in Wittgenstein's writings, to his concept of 'metaphysi cal use'; the second is an exposition of what Derrida refers to as 'metaphysical appurtenance' and attendant notions such as those of binary oppositions and of the labouring of concepts; and the third is a summing up and a defence of the thesis that Wittgenstein does not, in any full-bodied sense of the term, 'deconstruct'. Key Words: Derrida • language • meaning • metaphysics • Wittgenstein.