The logician's central concern is with the validity of argument. A logical theory ought, therefore, to provide a general criterion of validity. This book sets out to find such a criterion, and to describe the philosophical basis and the formal theory of a logic in which the premises of a valid argument are relevant to its conclusion. The notion of relevance required for this theory is obtained by an analysis of the grounds for asserting a formula in a proof.

We analyse the possibility that string-theoretic dualities present a genuine case of strong underdetermination of theory by evidence. Drawing on the parallel discussion of the hole argument, we assess the possible interpretations of dualities. We conclude that there exist at least two defensible interpretations on which dualities do not present a worrying case of underdetermination per se.

Peirce's example puts another nail in the coffin of the truth-functionality thesis. Conditionals are not truth-functional.

Special relativity has been understood by many as vindicating a tenseless conception of time, denying the existence of tensed facts and a fortiori objective temporal passage. The reason for this is straightforward: both passage and the obtaining of tensed facts require a universal knife-edge present moment—yet this structure is not easily reconcilable with the relativity of simultaneity. The above being said, the prospects for tense and passage are sometimes claimed to be improved on moving to cosmological solutions of general relativity. (...) In this paper, we evaluate in detail these arguments, finding that there remain several open questions to be addressed if the introduction of tensed facts into the relativistic context is to be compelling. Moreover, we argue that, even setting aside these issues, objective tense stands and falls in relativity for exactly the same reasons that it does in classical philosophical discussions on the matter. (shrink)

The recovery of Aristotle’s logic during the twelfth century was a great stimulus to medieval thinkers. Among their own theories developed to explain Aristotle’s theories of valid and invalid reasoning was a theory of consequence, of what arguments were valid, and why. By the fourteenth century, two main lines of thought had developed, one at Oxford, the other at Paris. Both schools distinguished formal from material consequence, but in very different ways. In Buridan and his followers in Paris, formal (...) consequence was that preserved under uniform substitution. In Oxford, in contrast, formal consequence included analytic consequences such as ‘If it’s a man, then it’s an animal’. Aristotle’s notion of syllogistic consequence was subsumed under the treatment of formal consequence. Buridan developed a general theory embracing the assertoric syllogism, the modal syllogism and syllogisms with oblique terms. The result was a thoroughly systematic and extensive treatment of logical theory and logical consequence which repays investigation. (shrink)

'Practices without foundations' is, in genesis and in effect, a discussion of the following quotation , which serves therefore as an epigraph to it: ;Nelson Goodman's discussion of the 'new riddle of induction' ... deserves comparison with Wittgenstein's work. Indeed ... the basic strategy of Goodman's treatment of the 'new riddle' is strikingly close to Wittgenstein's sceptical arguments .... Although our paradigm of Wittgenstein's problem was formulated for a mathematical problem it ... is completely general and can be applied (...) to any rule or word. In particular, if it were formulated for the language of color impressions, as Wittgenstein himself suggests, Goodman's 'grue', or something similar, would play the role of 'quus'. But the problem would not be Goodman's about induction--"Why not predict that grass, which has been grue in the past will be grue in the future?"--but Wittgenstein's about meaning: "Who is to say that in the past I didn't mean grue by 'green', so that now I should call the sky, not the grass, 'green'?" vskip9pt ;This fascinating remark of Kripke's suggests a project, that of charting out both the interpretive and philosophic points of connection and disconnection between Wittgenstein, Goodman and Kripke. That project is this dissertation. ;My work severely tests Kripke's remark. For I argue that Kripke not only misreads Wittgenstein, but also mistakes the extremity of the 'scepticism' of his version of Wittgenstein for the priority of the philosophical puzzle that Goodman has bequeathed to us. ;To reach this conclusion, I show that Kripke's Wittgenstein's 'meaning-scepticism' is unanswerable if statable, but actually unstatable; and that, under certain interpretations, the same is true of putative scepticisms derivable from Goodman's text. The upshot is that the sceptical reading of most twentieth century philosophy must be displaced in favour of 'post-scepticism' and 'philosophical ethnography'. The latter concepts, sketched toward the end of the dissertation, are perhaps its telos. (shrink)

Since the mid-1800s, clergy, doctors, other clinicians, and military personnel who specifically facilitate their work have been designated “non-combatants”, protected from being targeted in return for providing care on the basis of clinical need alone. While permitted to use weapons to protect themselves and their patients, they may not attempt to gain military advantage over an adversary. The rationale for these regulations is based on sound arguments aimed both at reducing human suffering, but also the ultimate advantage of the (...) nation-state fielding non-combatant staff. However, this is sometimes not immediately apparent to combatant colleagues. Clinicians in the armed force are also military officers, owing a “dual loyalty” that can create conflict if their non-combatant status is not well understood. Historical examples of doctors breaching their responsibilities include prioritisation of combat capability over the rights of individual soldiers (as occurred when scarce medical resources were allocated to soldiers more likely to return to battle in preference to those most likely to die without them), use of physicians to facilitate prisoner interrogation, medical research or treatment to enhance physical performance at the expense of health, application of Medical Rules of Eligibility according to factors other than clinical need, provision of treatment contingent upon support for military objectives, and use of medical knowledge to enhance weapons. However, not being a combatant party to a conflict does not imply that the non-combatant clinician cannot act in the national interest. Indeed, by adhering to the same universal ethics as their civilian colleagues, military clinicians provide optimal care to their own troops, facilitate freedom of action in host nations, and build positive international relationships during the conflict and in the post-conflict state. (shrink)

What makes necessary truths true? I argue that all truth supervenes on how things are, and that necessary truths are no exception. What makes them true are proofs. But if so, the notion of proof needs to be generalized to include verification-transcendent proofs, proofs whose correctness exceeds our ability to verify it. It is incumbent on me, therefore, to show that arguments, such as Dummett's, that verification- truth is not compatible with the theory of meaning, are mistaken. The answer (...) is that what we can conceive and construct far outstrips our actual abilities. I conclude by proposing a proof-theoretic account of modality, rejecting a claim of Armstrong's that modality can reside in non-modal truthmakers. (shrink)

The focus of the paper is a sophism based on the proposition ‘This is Socrates’ found in a short treatise on obligational casus attributed to William Heytesbury. First, the background to the puzzle in Walter Burley’s traditional account of obligations (the responsio antiqua), and the objections and revisions made by Richard Kilvington and Roger Swyneshed, are presented. All six types of obligations described by Burley are outlined, including sit verum, the type used in the sophism. Kilvington and Swyneshed disliked the (...) dynamic nature of the responsio antiqua, and Kilvington proposed a revision to the rules for irrelevant propositions. This allowed him to use a form of reasoning, the “disputational meta-argument”, which is incompatible with Burley’s rules. Heytesbury explicitly rejected Kilvington’s revision and the associated meta-argument. Swyneshed also revised Burley’s account of obligations, formulating the so-called responsio nova, characterised by the apparently surprising thesis that a conjunction can be denied both of whose conjuncts are granted. On closer inspection, however, his account is found to be less radical than first appears. (shrink)

Kretzmann and Spade were led by Richard Kilvington’s proposed revisions to the rules of obligations in his discussion of the 47th sophism in his Sophismata to claim that the purpose of obligational disputations was the same as that of counterfactual reasoning. Angel d’Ors challenged this interpretation, realising that the reason for Kilvington’s revision was precisely that he found the art of obligation unsuited to the kind of reasoning which lay at the heart of the sophismatic argument. In his criticism, Kilvington (...) focussed on a technique used by Walter Burley to force a respondent to grant an arbitrary falsehood and similar to Lewis and Langford’s famous defence of ex impossibili quodlibet. Kilvington observes that just as in obligational disputation, one may be obliged to grant a false proposition and deny a true one, so in counterfactual reasoning one may be obliged to doubt a proposition whose truth or falsity one knows, on pain of contradiction. (shrink)

Interventions designed to promote perspective taking are increasingly prevalent in educational settings, and are also being considered for applications in other domains. Thus far, these perspective-taking interventions (PTIs) have largely escaped philosophical attention, however they are sometimes prima facie morally problematic in at least two respects: they are neither transparent nor easy to resist. Nontransparent or hard-to-resist PTIs call for a moral defense and our primary aim in this paper is to provide such a defense. We offer two arguments (...) for the view that an exemplar PTI is morally permissible even though it is plausibly neither transparent nor easy to resist. The first argument appeals to an analogy between PTIs and permissible deceptive research practices. The second appeals to the way in which PTIs draw participants’ attention to their reasons for action. We also respond to the objection that, by imposing a particular conception of the good, PTIs violate liberal neutrality. (shrink)

t is often suggested that truth-preservation is insufficient for logical consequence, and that consequence needs to satisfy a further condition of relevance. Premises and conclusion in a valid consequence must be relevant to one another, and truth-preservation is too coarse-grained a notion to guarantee that. Thus logical consequence is the intersection of truth-preservation and relevance. This situation has the absurd consequence that one might concede that the conclusion of an argument was true (since the argument had true premises and was (...) truth-preserving); yet should refuse to infer the conclusion from the premises, in the absence of demonstration of the relevance of the premises to the conclusion. The error lies in giving insufficient attention to the notion of truth-preservation. Relevance is no separable ingredient in the analysis of logical consequence, but a necessary condition of it. What we show is that if an argument really is truth-preserving, then that in itself is enough to show that the premises are (logically) relevant to the conclusion. (shrink)

Kuhn's ‘taxonomic conception’ of natural kinds enables him to defend and re-specify the notion of incommensurability against the idea that it is reference, not meaning/use, that is overwhelmingly important. Kuhn's ghost still lacks any reason to believe that referentialist essentialism undercuts his central arguments in SSR – and indeed, any reason to believe that such essentialism is even coherent, considered as a doctrine about anything remotely resembling our actual science. The actual relation of Kuhn to Kripke-Putnam essentialism, is as (...) follows: Kuhn decisively undermines it – drawing upon the inadequacies of such essentialism when faced with the failure of attempts to instantiate in history or contemporaneously its ‘thought-experiment’ – and leaves the field open instead for his own more ‘realistic’, deflationary way of thinking about the operation of ‘natural kinds’ in science. (shrink)

This print edition of Read's account of logical thought includes the original publication's diagrams and tables. In this excellent book, Read commences by offering an overview of past attitudes and definitions of logic. Individual chapters consider the various means by which logical processes are conceived and developed in the mind. Philosophical arguments, spatial reasoning and mathematical forms of logic are discussed in great depth, with illustrations appended where deemed necessary. Read, an academic and philosopher, employs his decades long experience (...) of teaching students about the logical disciplines to write a detailed and comprehensive accounts of logic's aspects. Throughout this work, he attempts to retain a clarity of expression which makes the concepts discussed understandable for readers previously unversed in the types of logical expression. Read also sets out the principles behind setting up a hypothesis, and highlights the common logical fallacies which crop up in human reasoning. Extensive attention is given to the process of syllogism, by which sound conclusions are drawn from the premises offered. Throughout the book, Read is attentive in defining and explaining the esoteric terminology native to logic. As well as allowing the reader swift comprehension of the various subtopics, this explanatory style confers improved flow to the book. At the conclusion we are offered many questions corresponding to each chapter: these are intended to test the reader's understanding, and enforce the mental habits of utilising logical and critical thought. First published in 1898 and subject to several editions with revisions and refinements thereafter, Logic Deductive and Inductive retains a good reputation among academics and logicians. Its successful balance between striking a concise introductory tone with an embrace of the core elements of the subject has served to preserve its popularity into the modern day. (shrink)

We make some remarks on the mathematics and metaphysics of the hole argument, in response to a recent article in this journal by Weatherall ([2018]). Broadly speaking, we defend the mainstream philosophical literature from the claim that correct usage of the mathematics of general relativity `blocks' the argument.

In his Quadratura, Paul of Venice considers a sophism involving time and tense which appears to show that there is a valid inference which is also invalid. His argument runs as follows: consider this inference concerning some proposition A: A will signify only that everything true will be false, so A will be false. Call this inference B. Then B is valid because the opposite of its conclusion is incompatible with its premise. In accordance with the standard doctrine of ampliation, (...) Paul takes A to be equivalent to 'Everything that is or will be true will be false'. But he proceeds to argue that it is possible that B's premise ('A will signify only that everything true will be false') could be true and its conclusion false, so B is not only valid but also invalid. Thus A and B are the basis of an insoluble. In his Logica Parva, a self-confessedly elementary text aimed at students and not necessarily representing his own view, and in the Quadratura, Paul follows the solution found in the Logica Oxoniensis, which posits an implicit assertion of its own truth in insolubles like B. However, in the treatise on insolubles in his Logica Magna, Paul develops and endorses Swyneshed's solution, which stood out against this ''multiple-meanings'' approach in offering a solution that took insolubles at face value, meaning no more than is explicit in what they say. On this account, insolubles imply their own falsity, and that is why, in so falsifying themselves, they are false. We consider how both types of solution apply to B and how they complement each other. On both, B is valid. But on one (following Swyneshed), B has true premises and false conclusion, and contradictories can be false together; on the other (following the Logica Oxoniensis), the counterexample is rejected. (shrink)

Commonwealthis the third book co-authored by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. As with the previous two books,EmpireandMultitude, the task of this book is to both critique the present order and provide the concepts for a radical transformation of that order. This review examines how this third, and final book in the series, changes the argument of the other two, specifically examining the rôle that the concept of the common plays in restructuring the idea of critique, politics, and political economy.

The Political Treatise is relatively overlooked in Spinoza's corpus. This is especially true in Anglo-American contexts, where scholarship has been slow to engage with Spinoza's political philosophy, at the expense of a correct understanding of his metaphysics. The reasons for the lack of interest in the Political Treatise are numerous. The immediate and most often cited reason is its incompleteness. Not only does it break off unfinished, but it does so at precisely the point that is essential to its argument; (...) the discussion of democracy. That Spinoza refers to democracy as the "completely absolute state" while leaving the chapter on democracy incomplete would seem to doom Spinoza's... (shrink)

One of the motivations for Salmon's (1984) causal theory of explanation was the explanatory irrelevance exhibited by many arguments conforming to Hempel's covering-law models of explanation. However, the nexus of causal processes and interactions characterized by Salmon is not rich enough to supply the necessary conception of explanatory relevance. Salmon's (1994) revised theory, which is briefly criticized on independent grounds, fares no better. There is some possibility that the two-tiered structure of explanation described by Salmon (1984) may be pressed (...) into service, but more work would have to be done. Ironically, Salmon's difficulties are similar to those suffered by his seventeenth-century predecessors. (shrink)

In a recent article, Halvorson and Manchak (Br J Philos Sci, Forthcoming) claim that there is no basis for the Hole Argument, because (in a certain sense) hole isometries are unique. This raises two important questions: (a) does their argument succeed?; (b) how does this formalist response to the Hole Argument relate to other recent responses to the Hole Argument in the same tradition—in particular, that of Weatherall (Br J Philos Sci 69(2):329–350, 2018)? In this article, _ad_ (a), we argue (...) that Halvorson and Manchak’s claim does not go through; _ad_ (b), we argue that although one _prima facie_ plausible reading would see Halvorson and Manchak as filling an important hole (no pun intended) in Weatherall’s argument, in fact this reading is implausible; there is no need to supplement Weatherall’s work with Halvorson and Manchak’s results. (shrink)

The paper investigates the status of gravitational energy in Newtonian Gravity, developing upon recent work by Dewar and Weatherall. The latter suggest that gravitational energy is a gauge quantity. This is potentially misleading: its gauge status crucially depends on the spacetime setting one adopts. In line with Møller-Nielsen’s plea for a motivational approach to symmetries, we supplement Dewar and Weatherall’s work by discussing gravitational energy–stress in Newtonian spacetime, Galilean spacetime, Maxwell-Huygens spacetime, and Newton–Cartan Theory. Although we ultimately concur with Dewar (...) and Weatherall that the notion of gravitational energy is problematic in NCT, our analysis goes beyond their work. The absence of an explicit definition of gravitational energy–stress in NCT somewhat detracts from the force of Dewar and Weatherall’s argument. We fill this gap by examining the supposed gauge status of prima facie plausible candidates—NCT analogues of gravitational energy–stress pseudotensors, the Komar mass, and the Bel-Robinson tensor. Our paper further strengthens Dewar and Weatherall’s results. In addition, it sheds more light upon the subtle link between sufficiently rich inertial structure and the definability of gravitational energy in NG. (shrink)

Supposing that one is already familiar with special relativistic physics, what constitutes the best route via which to arrive at the architecture of the general theory of relativity? Although the later Einstein would stress the significance of mathematical and theoretical principles in answering this question, in this article we follow the lead of the earlier Einstein (circa 1916) and stress instead how one can go a long way to arriving at the general theory via inductive and empirical principles, without invoking (...) presumptions concerning the geometrical structure of the final theory. We focus on the construction of the kinematical structure and the terms describing the coupling of matter to gravity. General covariance, understood and employed as a straightforward extrapolation of empirical considerations, is central to our derivation, together with what we dub the `Methodological Equivalence Principle'. We argue that our approach has a number of virtues, both for one's understanding of the general theory of relativity, but also for pedagogy, since it stresses---to the greatest extent possible (a lesson which we inherit from Bell, [1976])---both the methodological precedence of dynamical considerations to interpretative issues and the theoretical continuity between general relativity and its precursors. We conclude by comparing our approach to other philosophical approaches to general relativity and discussing the significance of empirically motivated methodological principles in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Gabriel Nuchelmans, Dilemmatic arguments. Towards a history of their logic and rhetoric. Amsterdam, New York, Oxford, Tokyo:North-Holland, 1991. 152pp. No price stated Francis P. Dinneen, Peter of Spain:language in dispute. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1990. xxxix + 271 pp. Hfl. 110/$58.00 Charles H. Manekin, The logic of Gersonides. A translation of Sefer ha-heqqesh ha-yashar of Rabbi Levi ben Gershom with introduction, commentary and analytical glossary. Dordrecht, Boston and London:Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992. xii + 341 pp. £61.00 (...) F. P. Ramsey, Notes on philosophy, probability and mathematics. Edited by Maria Carla Galavotti. Naples:Bibliopolis, 1991 [published 1992]. 349 pp. No price stated Thomas Drucker, Perspectives on the History of Mathematical Logic. Boston, Basel, Berlin; Birkhäuser, 1991. xxiii 4- 195 pp. 108 SFr./128 DM J.P. Cleave, A study of logics. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1991. xiii + 417 pp. £65.00 Hartry Field, Realism, mathematics and modality. Oxford and Cambridge :Blackwell, 1989. viii + 290 pp. £14.95 T.E. Forster, Set theory with a universal set, exploring an untyped universe. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1992. viii + 152 pp., £25.00 Mark Sainsbury, Logical forms:an introduction to philosophical logic. Cambridge, Mass, and Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publishers, 1991. viii + 398 pp. £40.00, £11.95 L.C. Burns, Vagueness. An investigation into natural languages and the sorites paradox. Dordrecht, Boston and London:Kluwer, 1991. xii + 202 pp. dollar;130.00/£74.00/Dfl 130 Douglas Walton, Slippery slope arguments. Oxford:The Clarendon Press, 1992. xi + 296 pp. £35.00 Bas Van Fraassen, Quantum mechanics. An empiricist view. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1991. xvi + 541 pp. £50.00 /£17.50 R. Giuntini, Quantum logic and hidden variables. Mannheim, Vienna and Zürich:BI-Wissenschaf ts-verlag, 1991. x + 184 pp. No price stated W. Spohn, B.C. Van Fraassn And B. Skyrms, Existence and explanation:essays presented in honor of Karel Lambert. Dordrect, Boston and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991. xii 4- 243 pp. £56.00 Michele Di Francesco, Il realismo analitico. Logica, ontologia e significato nel primo Russell Milan:Guerini, 1991. 269 pp. 30,000 Lire Kenneth Blackwell and Carl Spadont, A detailed catalogue of the second archives of Bertrand Russell. Bristol:Thoemmes Press, 1992. xxvi + 433 pp. £60.00. (shrink)

Philosophers have used the probabilistic relation of ’screening-off‘ to explicate concepts in the theories of causation and explanation. Brandon has used screening-off relations in an attempt to reconstruct an argument of Mayr and Gould that natural selection acts at the level of the organism. I argue that Brandon‘s reconstruction is unsuccessful.

In his paper, ‘Regarding the ‘Hole Argument”, Weatherall suggests that models of general relativity related by a hole diffeomorphism must be regarded as being physically equivalent. At a later stage in the paper, however, he also argues that there is a sense in which two such models may be regarded as being empirically distinct—a fortiori physically distinct. We attempt to delineate the logic behind these two prima facie contradictory claims. We argue that the latter sense rests upon a misunderstanding of (...) the import of shift arguments in the foundations of spacetime theories. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to provide you with tools to become a better reader of nonfiction, argumentative texts.

Introduction: the Study of Argumentation Although our overall organization of the readings suggests one way of dividing our selected literature, ...

In this paper, I set out to argue in favour of a philosophical posthumanist and Nietzschean reading of Ira Levin’s This Perfect Day while demonstrating how transhumanism isunbefitting of being called a Nietzschean theory. I will do this by establishing Chip, the protagonist, as a posthuman and being on the path of the ‘Overhuman’ whereas Wei, the antagonist, will be illustrated as Chip’s intended counterpart the Last Human. Through explaining ‘Transhumansim’ and connecting the field to Wei, I will showcase (...) a new way of reading transhumanist ideology, namely ‘Weiism’. The polar opposite in characters of ‘Overhuman’ and ‘Last Human’ will argue in favour of the Nietzschean paradoxical, as part of philosophical posthumanism. Amor fati and the eternal recurrence become posthumanist narrative tools through their weaving into the posthuman narrative of Chip. My argument is that by making philosophical posthumanism more existentialist in nature, it becomes simpler to argue against nihilistic and totalitarian tendencies of worshipping technology. Finally, it is the spiralling motion forward as a mix between the Nietzschean, eternally cyclical re-inventing of oneself and the posthumanist consideration for the future which makes for a literary combination of the two fields of study. (shrink)

As Peter Lamarque explains in "Work and Object", the claim that artworks are not identical with their vehicles lies at the core of a variety of art-ontological accounts, including Jean-Paul Sartre’s one. In chapter 10, Lamarque gives us an insightful read-ing of Sartre’s art-ontological proposal: works of art in themselves do not exist, while what exists is their ‘material analogue’ which, when perceived, arouses in us certain imaginings. What we call ‘artwork’ is the object of such imaginings – an object (...) that doesn’t exist. Although Lamarque does not embrace Sartre’s view, others might find Sartre’s proposal at least prima facie promising. In particular, to those inclined to be skeptical about the genuine theoretical weight of debates about the existence of some kinds of objects, artworks qua ontologically distinct from their vehicles might look like a case where there is no fact of the matter to be right or wrong about and continuing to engage in ontological disputes is futile. Those scholars might then be sympathetic towards a proposal, inspired by Sartre as well as by Stephen Yablo’s analysis of folk number statements, according to which when we talk about artworks we are merely pretending that certain objects of our imagination exist. In the first part of this paper, I rapidly explore this meta-ontological view. In the concluding section, I argue against the proposal previously outlined. (shrink)

"Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing" is a compact but thorough guide to critical thinking and argumentation. Comprising the text portion of the widely adopted "Current Issues and Enduring Questions," it draws on the authors' dual expertise in effective persuasive writing and rigorous critical thinking. It helps students move from critical thinking to argumentative and researched writing. With comprehensive coverage of classic and contemporary approaches to argument, including Aristotle, Toulmin, and a range of alternative views, it is an extraordinarily versatile (...) text. This affordable guide can stand alone or supplement a larger anthology of readings. "Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing" has been revised to address current student interests and trends in argument, research, and writing. (shrink)

Introduction -- The pre-text : the dialectical origins of Anselm's argument -- The text -- Proslogion -- Pro insipiente -- Responsio -- Commentary on the Proslogion -- Anselm's defence and the Unum argumentum -- The medieval reception -- The modern reception -- Anselm's argument today -- Conclusion: The significance of Anselm's argument.

_Reading Aristotle: Argument and Exposition_ demonstrates that Aristotle’s treatises rely crucially on expository principles—questions of proper sequence, pedagogical method, and distinctions between different sciences.

This article examines Appaya Dīkṣita’s intellectual affiliation to Śivādvaita Vedānta in light of his well-known commitment to Advaita Vedānta. Attention will be given to his Śivādvaitanirṇaya, a short work expounding the nature of the Śivādvaita doctrine taught by Śrīkaṇṭha in his Śaiva-leaning commentary on the Brahmasūtra. It will be shown how Appaya strategically interprets Śrīkaṇṭha’s views on the relationship between Śiva, its power of consciousness and the individual self, along the lines of pure non-dualism. In this context, the hermeneutical role (...) of the daharavidyā doctrine will be considered with reference to Appaya’s Śivādvaita magnum opus, the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā. (shrink)

The main question of our article is: What is the logical form of statements containing expressions such as “… is true” and “it is true that …”? We claim that these expressions are generally not used in order to assign a certain property to sentences. We indicate that a predicative interpretation of these expressions was rejected by Frege and adherents to the prosentential conception of truth. We treat these expressions as operators. The main advantage of our operational reading is (...) the fact that it adequately represents how the words, “true” and “truth,” function in everyday speech. Our approach confirms the intuition that so-called T-equivalences are not contingent truths, and explains why they seem to be—in some sense—necessary sentences. Moreover, our operational readingof truth expressions dissolves problems arising from the belief that there is some specific property—truth. The fact that we reject that truth is a certain property does not mean that we deny that the concept of truth plays a very important role in our language, and hence in our life. We indicate that the concept of truth is inseparable from the concept of sentence and vice versa—it is impossible to explicate one of these concepts without appeal to the other. (shrink)

_From one of America’s most distinguished constitutional scholars, an intriguing exploration of America’s most famous political tract and its relevance to today’s politics_ In _An Argument Open to All,_ renowned legal scholar Sanford Levinson takes a novel approach to what is perhaps America’s most famous political tract. Rather than concern himself with the authors as historical figures, or how _The Federalist_ helps us understand the original intent of the framers of the Constitution, Levinson examines each essay for the _political_ wisdom (...) it can offer us today. In eighty-five short essays, each keyed to a different essay in _The Federalist,_ he considers such questions as whether present generations can rethink their constitutional arrangements; how much effort we should exert to preserve America’s traditional culture; and whether _The Federalist_’s arguments even suggest the desirability of world government. (shrink)

This paper criticizes the circularity reading of Frege's argument for the indefinability of truth. According to this reading, Frege is appealing to a sort of circularity in the argument. I argue that the circularity reading is interpretatively incorrect, or makes Frege's argument a non‐starter.

Reading-to-write is an essential skill in academic writing, and reading-writing tasks have been widely adopted in standardized English tests. Much more recent literature on integrated reading-writing tasks has focused on writers’ use of source texts or the validity of integrated writing assessment, while little is known about whether the nature of the types of reading texts has any bearing on integrated reading-writing tasks. This study examines whether the types of reading texts have any influence (...) on second language students’ argumentative writing in terms of the use of argument elements and its overall quality. Fifty-four Chinese second-year university students majoring in English language teaching were asked to write an argumentative essay after reading texts with either similar views or opposing views. Results show that students reading texts with opposing viewpoints presented more data and higher overall quality of argumentative essays than students reading texts with similar viewpoints, although the latter group presented more counterargument data. Pedagogical implications on teaching argumentative writing are discussed. (shrink)

My purpose is to compare Berkeley’s and Gentile’s idealism, interpreting Berkeley’s Treatise, §§22–23, and Gentile’s reading of this passage. The Italian philosopher finds in Berkeley’s master argument the original source of the true idealistic way of thinking, but he believes that Berkeley has not been sufficiently consistent in deducing all the consequences from his new principle. This criticism is the ground of Gentile’s actual idealism. Comparing the two positions is very instructive both to elucidate the general issue of idealism (...) and to understand Berkeley’s philosophy. (shrink)

Kant’s “primacy of the practical” doctrine says that we can form morally justified commitments regarding what exists, even in the absence of sufficient epistemic grounds. In this paper I critically examine three different varieties of Kant’s “moral proof” that can be found in the critical works. My claim is that the third variety—the “moral-psychological argument” based in the need to sustain moral hope and avoid demoralization—has some intriguing advantages over the other two. It starts with a premise that more clearly (...) coheres with Kant’s mature account of moral motivation, and it invokes plausible empirical-psychological theses to motivate a commitment to the full-blown classical deity—the result Kant clearly wanted. From the point of view of its structure, I think this third variety of moral argument also has the most by way of contemporary interest. (shrink)