Online research in philosophy

The argument of J. M. E. McTaggart in ‘The Unreality of Time’ (Mind 1908) fails logically. There is no A series as such, but there is a shifting past-present-future arrangement within and consistent with the earlier-later B series, past being always earlier, future always later, present always a position earlier or later. An exactly similar logical structure is constructible within the number series, by making each number as one goes up it in turn (it does not matter what ‘it’, or ‘present’, means, ontologically). The subsequent argument that past-present-future time falls into contradiction then fails also, and proves to be equivocal.

An argument for skepticism about the past exploits a circularity in the arguments connecting present observations to claims about past events. Arguments supporting claims about the past depend on current observations together with processes linking current observations to those claims. But knowledge of processes requires knowledge of the past: Knowledge of the present alone cannot provide evidence for claims about the past. A practical, coherentist response to this challenge rejects the assumption that we come to the problem with no information about the past. Beginning with partial and imperfect information about the past, a coherentist tests ideas about processes against the particular evidence of traces left by past processes, and particular claims about the past against ideas about the processes linking those events to present traces. However, this common-sense response is inadequate when faced with a radical skeptic prepared to insist on the problem of the criterion. An answer to this radicalskeptic can be drawn from Wilfrid Sellars ‘bootstrap’ argument in “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.” The result is a better response to the problem of the criterion than Chisholm’s ‘particularism’.

This anthology of 78 readings includes historically diverse writings by men and women working within Asian, African, Latin American, and native North American cultural traditions, as well as classic and contemporary readings from Western sources. The aim is to present students with a more global, multicultural, and gender-conscious picture of philosophical inquiry and the range of issues it confronts.

What is the meaning of the present and past tenses? The answer to this question depends on what objects these terms refer to. If the question is about the English tense morphemes present and past, we will get one answer; if it is about their Japanese or Russian counterparts, we will get another; and if it is about a semantic categories PRESENT and PAST attributed to the theory of Universal Grammar (UG), we will get still another. In this article, I discuss the semantics (and the syntax) of (English) morphemes, but my theoretical treatment of this exploits temporal categories that I attribute to UG, expressed overtly in some languages and covertly in others.

Some years ago I reviewed a collection of papers called African Philosophy: The Essential Readings , edited by Serequeberhan. My last comment in that review was the expression of the hope for collections of papers that would give an insight into what's going on in African philosophy, rather than into the debate over the existence and nature of African philosophy. My concern is echoed by the last line of a letter printed in the present volume of readings: "Hitherto most of us have been talking about African philosophy, instead of doing African philosophy." (p.xlii) So when I received this book for review, I naturally hoped that it was what I'd been waiting for. I'm afraid that it isn't.

This essay offers a reading of a difficult passage in the first book of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura in which the poet first explains the Epicurean account of time and then responds to a worry about the status of the past (1.459-82). It identifies two possible readings of the passage, one of which is compatible with the claim that the Epicureans were presentists about the past. Other evidence, particularly from Cicero De Fato, suggests that the Epicureans maintained that all true assertions must have a contemporaneous truth-maker and that no contingent future-tensed assertions are true. It appears, however, that they did not assert a symmetrical view of past-tensed assertions. There is no compelling reason, therefore, to think that the Epicureans were presentists about the past.

The most effective—indeed, the only—way to make the future different from the past is, in the judgment of pragmatists such as William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead, to remake the present. As Dewey notes, "present activity" is the only phase of human conduct really under our control (MW 14.184). 1 For just this reason, we must be mindful of the past and solicitous about the future as well as attuned to the present: "Memory of the past, observation of the present, foresight of the future are indispensable. But they are indispensable to a present liberation, an enriching growth of action" unfolding in the here and now (MW 14.182). 2 Dewey goes so far as to assert: "We do not use the ..

Fifty Readings is a flexible and affordable collection of classic and contemporary primary sources in philosophy. The readings cover all the main topics of Western Philosophy, and each one is carefully edited to be long enough to present a self-contained argument but not so lengthy that students lose track of the main point. A wide selection of readings at an attractive price makes this text the most versatile introduction to philosophy reader on the market.

Fifty Readings is a flexible and affordable collection of classic and contemporary primary sources in philosophy. The readings cover all the main topics of Western Philosophy, and each one is carefully edited to be long enough to present a self-contained argument but not so lengthy that students lose track of the main point. A wide selection of readings at an attractive price makes this text the most versatile introduction to philosophy reader on the market.

(ed. Tamar Szabo Gendler, Susanna Siegel and Steven M. Cahn) Oxford, 2007.