Online research in philosophy

Measurement is a process aimed at acquiring and codifying information about properties of empirical entities. In this paper we provide an interpretation of such a process comparing it with what is nowadays considered the standard measurement theory, i.e., representational theory of measurement. It is maintained here that this theory has its own merits but it is incomplete and too abstract, its main weakness being the scant attention reserved to the empirical side of measurement, i.e., to measurement systems and to the (...) ways in which the interactions of such systems with the entities under measurement provide a structure to an empirical domain. In particular it is claimed that (1) it is on the ground of the interaction with a measurement system that a partition can be induced on the domain of entities under measurement and that relations among such entities can be established, and that (2) it is the usage of measurement systems that guarantees a degree of objectivity and intersubjectivity to measurement results. As modeled in this paper, measurement systems link the abstract theory of measuring, as developed in representational terms, and the practice of measuring, as coded in standard documents such as the International Vocabulary of Metrology. (shrink)

I examine “The Land Ethic” by Aldo Leopold from a virtue ethics perspective. Following Leopold, I posit the “good” as the “integrity, stability, and beauty” of biotic communities and then develop “land virtues” that foster this good. I recommend and defend three land virtues: respect (or ecological sensitivity), prudence, and practical judgment.

I focus on the religio-aesthetic concept of nature in Japanese Buddhism as a valuable complement to environmental philosophy in the West and develop an explicit comparison of the Japanese Buddhist concept of nature and the ecological world view of Aldo Leopold. I discuss the profound current of ecological thought running through the Kegon, Tendai, Shingon, Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren Buddhist traditions as weIl as modem Japanese philosophy as represented by Nishida Kitarö and Watsuji Tetsurö. In this context, I (...) present the Japanese concept of nature as an aesthetic continuum of interdependent events based on a field paradigm of reality. I show how the Japanese concept of nature entails an extension of ethics to include the relation between humans and the land. I argue that in both the Japanese Buddhist concept of nature and the thought of Aldo Leopold there is a hierarchy of normative values which grounds the land ethic in aland aesthetic. I also clarify the soteric concept of nature in Japanese Buddhism by which the natural environment becomes the ultimate locus of salvation for all sentient beings. In this way, I argue that the Japanese Buddhist concept of nature represents a fundamental shift from the egocentric to an ecocentric position-i.e., a de-anthropocentric standpoint which is nature-centered as opposed to human-centered. (shrink)

Aldo Leopold’s land ethic calls for an extension of ethical consideration to nonhuman components of the complex system he called “the land.” Although the basis for this extension was holistic, interpretations of Leopold’s holism leave one baffled at how he could see his land ethic as an extension of a system which recognizes individual human rights. Leopold’s critics and exponents alike have focused on the holism expressed in his definition of right and wrong. Both regard it as a working (...) criterion of morality to be applied directly to conduct, act by act. Both are mistaken. Leopold was an indirect holist, not a direct one. That is, he applied his holistic definition of right and wrong not as a role for judging conduct directly, case by case, but as a principle for judging conduct only indirectly by judging the roles, tastes, predilections, practices, and attitudes which influence it. (shrink)

Adam Smith is not an environmentalist, but he articulated an ethical theory that is increasingly recognized as a fruitful source of environmental ethics. In the context of this theory, Smith illustrates in a particularly valuable way the role that anthropocentric, utilitarian metastandards can play in defending nonanthropocentric, nonutilitarian ethical standpoints. There are four roles that an anthropocentricmetastandard can play in defending an ecocentric ethical standpoint such as Aldo Leopold’s land ethic. First, this metastandard helps reconcile ecocentrism with theodicy, either (...) of the religious sort—showing that God is good—or of the evolutionary sort—showing that ecocentrism is consistent with human ethical dispositions as evolved through a process of natural selection. Second, using anthropocentrism as a metastandard helps reconcile our moral interest in human welfare with a thoroughly ecocentric standpoint. Third, defending ecocentrism by appeal to an anthropocentric metastandard provides a way of swaying die-hard anthropocentrists to adopt a more ecocentric perspective without showing disrespect to nature in the process. Finally, the systematic quasi-ecological connection between ecocentrism as an ethical standard and anthropocentrism as a metastandard has a beauty of its own that can provide additional motive to adhere to ecocentric ethical norms. (shrink)

Aldo Leopold’s influence on environmental ethics cannot be overstated. I return to Leopold’s work in order to show the connection between the ethics of integrity and many of the points made by Leopold in his writings. I also show how the spirit of Leopold’s land ethic and his love and respect for wilderness is present and current in the Wildlands Project, and that it is a live part of public policy in North America, albeit a debated one.

While the conceptual depths of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic have been limned by environmental ethicists, the relevance of his philosophy to ecologicalrestoration—an applied environmental science—is less well known. I interpret some of his contributions to ecological restoration by framing his work within an expanded evolutionary frame. I especially emphasize the importance of natural beauty to his thinking. Recontextualized as a manifestation of emergent evolutionary complexity, the beauty of nature is fundamental not only to strong ecological restoration, but to reframing (...) our own self-conceptualizations—that is, the human place in the larger order of nature. (shrink)

Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac emphasizes values of receptivity and perceptivity that appear to be mutually reinforcing, critical to an ecological conscience, and cultivatable through concrete and embodied experience. His priorities bear striking similarities to elements of the ethics of care elaborated by feminist philosophers, especially Nel Noddings, who notably recommended receptivity, direct and personal experience, and even shared Leopold’s attentiveness to joy and play as sources of moral motivation. These commonalities are so fundamental that ecofeminists can and (...) should see Leopold as a philosophical ally. The three ecofeminist scholars who have devoted the most concerted attention to Leopold’s work argue that his Land Ethic is not, and does not provide a basis for, an ecofeminist ethic. I dispute the main criticisms of these scholars, and conclude that ecofeminists should attend more often to Leopold’s work, which extends possibilities for excellent praxis. (shrink)

Gian Aldo Antonelli and Cristina Bicchieri. Backwards Forwards Induction.

Gian Aldo Antonelli and Cristina Bicchieri. Forward Induction.

In an influential essay published in 1980, J. Baird Callicott argued that animal liberation and environmental ethics are distinct and inconsistent perspectives. Callicott had harsh words both for animals and animal liberationists. He referred to domestic animals as "living artifacts" and claimed that it is "incoherent" to speak of their natural behavior (30). He wrote that it is a "logical impossibility" to liberate domestic animals and that "the value commitments of the humane movement seem at bottom to betray a world-denying (...) or rather a life-loathing philosophy" (31). All of this is in distinction to Aldo Leopold's "land ethic" which, according to Callicott, is holistic. (shrink)

The ethical foundations of the “animal liberation” movement are compared with those of Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic,” which is taken as the paradigm for environmental ethics in general. Notwithstanding certain superficial similarities, more profound practical and theoretical differences are exposed. While only sentient animals are moraIly considerable according to the humane ethic, the land ethic includes within its purview plants as weIl as animals and even soils and waters. Nor does the land ethic prohibit the hunting, killing, and eating (...) ofcertain animal species, in sharp contrast to the humane ethic. The humane ethic rests upon Benthamic foundations: pain is taken to be the ultimate evil and it is reductive or atomistic in its moral focus. The land ethic, on the other hand, is holistic in the sense that theintegrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community is its summum bonum. A classical antecedent of some of the formal characteristics of the land ethic is found in Plato’s moral philosophy. Special consideration is given to the differing moral status of domestic and wild animals in the humane and land ethics and to the question of moral vegetarianism. (shrink)

Postmodernism -- Classical pragmatism : waiting at the end of the road -- Pragmatism, postmodernism, and global citizenship -- Classical pragmatism, postmodernism, and neopragmatism -- Technology -- Classical pragmatism and communicative action : Jürgen Habermas -- From critical theory to pragmatism : Andrew Feenberg -- A neo-Heideggerian critique of technology : Albert Borgmann -- Doing and making in a democracy : John Dewey -- The environment -- Nature as culture : John Dewey and Aldo Leopold -- Green pragmatism : (...) reals without realism, ideals without idealism -- Classical pragmatism -- What was Dewey's magic number? -- Cultivating a common faith : Dewey's religion -- Beyond the epistemology industry : Dewey's theory of inquiry -- The homo faber debate in Dewey and Max Scheler -- Productive pragmatism : habits as artifacts in Peirce and Dewey. (shrink)

*I am very pleased to be able to contribute this paper to a festschrift for Andrea Bonomi. This is not however, the paper I really wanted to write; I would have much rather have contributed a paper comparing the pianistic styles of Lennie Tristano and Bill Evans, which I think Andrea would have found much more fascinating than an essay devoted to an understanding of Frege’s thinking. But I do not totally despair. Andrea’s first paper published in English was (...) entitled “On the Concept of Logical Form in Frege,” so perhaps I can maintain some hope that this paper will appeal to lingering interests that Andrea wrote of in the past. I would like to thank Johannes Brandl, Ben Caplan, Bill Demopoulos, Bob Fiengo, Mark Kalderon, Patricia Marino, Gila Sher, Michael Thau, Dan Vest and especially Aldo Antonelli for very helpful discussion. (shrink)

This paper offers a diachronic reconstruction of MacCormick's theory of law and legal argumentation: In particular, two related points will be highlighted in which the difference between the perspective upheld in Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory and the later writings is particularly marked. The first point concerns MacCormick's gradual break with legal positivism, and more specifically the thesis that the implicit pretension to justice of law proves legal positivism false in all its different versions. The second point concerns MacCormick's acceptance (...) of the one-right-answer thesis and the consequent thinning of the differences between MacCormick's theory of legal reasoning and that of Ronald Dworkin and of Robert Alexy. The intent, however, is not only to describe this change in MacCormick's thought, but also to attempt a defence of the original view that we find in Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory. (shrink)

A post-positivist understanding of ecological science and the call for an “ecological ethic” indicate the need for a radically new approach to evaluating environmental change. The positivist view of science cannot capture the essence of environmental sciences because the recent work of “reflexive” ecological modelers shows that this requires a reconceptualization of the way in which values and ecological models interact in scientific process. Reflexive modelers are ecological modelers who believe it is appropriate for ecologists to examine the motives for (...) their choices in developing models; this self-reflexive approach opens the door to a new way of integrating values into public discourse and to a more comprehensive approach to evaluating ecological change. This reflexive building of ecological models is introduced through the transformative simile of Aldo Leopold, which shows that learning to “think like a mountain” involves a shift in both ecological modeling and in values and responsibility. An adequate, interdisciplinary approach to ecological valuation, requires a re-framing of the evaluation questions in entirely new ways, i.e., a review of the current status of interdisciplinary value theory with respect to ecological values reveals that neither of the widely accepted theories of environmental value—neither economic utilitarianism nor intrinsic value theory (environmental ethics)—provides a foundation for an ecologically sensitive evaluation process. Thus, a new, ecologically sensitive, and more comprehensive approach to evaluating ecological change would include an examination of the metaphors that motivate the models used to describe environmental change. (shrink)

Traditionally, analytic philosophers writing on aesthetics have given short shrift to nature. The last thirty years, however, have seen a steady growth of interest in this area. The essays and books now available cover central philosophical issues concerning the nature of the aesthetic and the existence of norms for aesthetic judgement. They also intersect with important issues in environmental philosophy. More recent contributions have opened up new topics, such as the relationship between natural sound and music, the beauty of animals, (...) and the aesthetics of gardens. Using these materials, it is now easy to include a module on the aesthetics of nature as one part of an introductory course on aesthetics, or even to design an entire upper-level undergraduate or graduate seminar around the topic. Author Recommends: Don Mannison, 'Comments Stimulated by Reinhardt's Remarks: A Prolegomenon to a Human Chauvinistic Aesthetic'. Environmental Philosophy. Eds. Don Mannison, Michael McRobbie, and Richard Routley (Canberra: Australian National University, 1980), 212–16. Readers coming fresh to contemporary debates may find the lack of attention to natural beauty in twentieth-century philosophy somewhat puzzling. This paper, which defends the view that nature cannot be aesthetically appreciated as such, presents this attitude in a particularly pure form. Ronald Hepburn, 'Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty'. British Analytical Philosophy. Eds. Bernard Williams and Alan Montefiore (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 285–310. Reprinted in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Eds. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). This seminal essay marks the beginning of contemporary discussion of the aesthetics of nature. Many of its ideas and themes continue to reverberate in contemporary debates. Allen Carlson, Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture (London: Routledge, 2000). This volume is a collection of Carlson's influential essays on environmental aesthetics. Chapters 4 and 5, 'Appreciation and the Natural Environment' and 'Nature, Aesthetic Judgment, and Objectivity', set the agenda for much subsequent discussion in the aesthetics of nature. Chapter 6, 'Nature and Positive Aesthetics', develops and defends the controversial idea that nature, unlike art, is always aesthetically good. Arnold Berleant, 'The Aesthetics of Art and Nature'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 228–43. Reprinted in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Eds. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). In this paper, Berleant presents his influential idea of an 'engaged aesthetics' for nature. Yuriko Saito, 'The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 101–11. This article develops Saito's idea that ethical considerations play a critical role in the aesthetics of nature, and presents a novel argument for Positive Aesthetics for nature. Malcolm Budd, The Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature: Essays on the Aesthetics of Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). This book collects Budd's papers on the aesthetics of nature, which contain important criticisms of Carlson's natural environmental model and the notion of Positive Aesthetics for nature. Noël Carroll, 'On Being Moved by Nature: Between Religion and Natural History'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 244–66. Reprinted in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Eds. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). This paper argues for the importance of aesthetic appreciation that emphasizes emotional responses to nature. A philosophically sophisticated and influential treatment by a leading aesthetician. Ned Hettinger, 'Allen Carlson's Environmental Aesthetics and Protection of the Environment'. Environmental Ethics 27 (2005): 57–76. In this essay, an environmental philosopher gives careful and thorough consideration to the place of aesthetic considerations in environmental protection, focusing on Carlson's work. John Andrew Fisher, 'What the Hills are Alive With: In Defense of the Sounds of Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 167–79. Reprinted in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Eds. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). Most discussions of nature aesthetics focus on visual experiences; this essay is the first philosophical study of the aesthetics of natural sounds. A nuanced and original paper. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant. 'Introduction: The Aesthetics of Nature'. The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Eds. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004), 11–42. A comprehensive review of the literature, this essay contains the best available bibliography on the subject. Online Materials: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/environmental-aesthetics/ Environmental Aesthetics: Allen Carlson's entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.aesthetics-online.org/articles/index.php?articles_id=17 Teaching Environmental Aesthetics: Allen Carlson's article on the American Society for Aesthetics Web site. http://www.uqtr.uquebec.ca/AE/Vol_6/ Volume 6 of AE: Canadian Aesthetics Journal /Revue canadienne d'esthetique: Papers by Thomas Heyd and Ira Newman on Allen Carlson's book Aesthetics and the Environment, along with a response from Carlson. http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=400 Paradoxes and Puzzles: Appreciating Gardens and Urban Nature: An essay by Stephanie Ross in the online journal Contemporary Aesthetics. Sample Syllabus for a three-week module in an undergraduate aesthetics course: This three week module can easily be adapted to fit shorter available class time or reduced reading expectations for students. A lighter two-week module, for instance, would drop the Hepburn reading and do either the Carroll essay or the Saito essay, but not both. Note that all readings for this module are reprinted in Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (eds.), The Aesthetics of Natural Environments (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). Week 1: Introduction Reading: Ronald Hepburn, 'Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty'. British Analytical Philosophy. Eds. Bernard Williams and Alan Montefiore (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 285–310. Discussion of Hepburn's essay will allow the instructor to bring out the distinctive issues and themes of the aesthetics of nature. Week 2: Objectivity or Subjectivity? Readings: Allen Carlson, 'Appreciation and the Natural Environment'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 37 (1979): 267–76. Arnold Berleant, 'The Aesthetics of Art and Nature'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 228–43. This section covers two very different approaches to thinking about the aesthetic appreciation of nature. Consideration of these provides an opportunity for students to reflect on nature's relationship to art, and on the character of aesthetic experience itself. Week 3: Pluralistic Approaches Readings: Yuriko Saito, 'Appreciating Nature on its Own Terms'. Environmental Ethics 20 (1998): 135–49. Noël Carroll, 'On Being Moved by Nature: Between Religion and Natural History'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 244–66. This section considers approaches that are motivated by perceived limitations of the two approaches mentioned above. In discussing these, students will focus on the significance, for the aesthetics of nature, of emotion and also of broader ethical considerations. Sample Syllabus for an upper-level undergraduate or graduate seminar: Books on Syllabus: Glenn Parsons, Aesthetics and Nature [AN] (London: Continuum Press, forthcoming November 2008). Allen Carlson, Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture [AE] (London: Routledge, 2000). Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (eds.), The Aesthetics of Natural Environments [ANE] (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). Week 1: Introduction Parsons, AN, ch. 1. Allen Carlson, 'Environmental Aesthetics'. The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics. Eds. Berys Gaut and Dominic Lopes (London: Routledge, 2001), 423–36. Don Mannison, 'Comments Stimulated by Reinhardt's Remarks: A Prolegomenon to a Human Chauvinistic Aesthetic'. Environmental Philosophy. Eds. Don Mannison, Michael McRobbie, and Richard Routley (Canberra: Australian National University, 1980), 212–16. Ronald Hepburn, 'Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty'. British Analytical Philosophy. Eds. Bernard Williams and Alan Montefiore (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 285–310. Reprinted in ANE. Week 2: Imagination Parsons, AN, ch. 2. Thomas Heyd, 'Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories About Nature'. British Journal of Aesthetics 41 (2001): 125–37. Reprinted in ANE. Emily Brady, 'Imagination and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 139–47. Reprinted in ANE. Marcia Eaton, 'Fact and Fiction in the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 149–56. Reprinted in ANE. Week 3: Formalism Parsons, AN, ch. 3. Carlson, 'Formal Qualities and the Natural Environment', AE, ch. 3. Allen Carlson, 'On the Possibility of Quantifying Scenic Beauty'. Landscape Planning 4 (1977): 131–72. Ira Newman, 'Reflections on Allen Carlson's Aesthetics and the Environment'. AE: Canadian Aesthetics Journal /Revue canadienne d'esthetique 6 (2001) http://www.uqtr.uquebec.ca/AE/Vol_6/Carlson/newman.html>. Nick Zangwill, 'Formal Natural Beauty'. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 21 (2001): 209–24. Week 4: Science and Nature Aesthetics Parsons, AN, ch. 4. Aldo Leopold, 'Country'. A Sand County Almanac, with Essays on Conservation from Round River (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1966), 177–80. Carlson, 'Appreciation and the Natural Environment', AE, ch. 4. Carlson, 'Nature, Aesthetic Judgment, and Objectivity', AE, ch. 5. Glenn Parsons, 'The Aesthetics of Nature'. Philosophy Compass 2 (2007): 358–72. Week 5: Positive Aesthetics Carlson, 'Nature and Positive Aesthetics', AE, ch. 6. Eugene Hargrove, Foundations of Environmental Ethics (Denton, TX: Environmental Ethics Books, 1996), ch. 6. Yuriko Saito, 'The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 101–11. Malcolm Budd, 'The Aesthetics of Nature'. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 100 (2000): 137–57. Glenn Parsons, 'Nature Appreciation, Science and Positive Aesthetics'. British Journal of Aesthetics 42 (2002): 279–95. Week 6: Animals Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Ed. James T. Boulton (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968 [1757]), Pt. III, sec. VI. Holmes Rolston III, 'Beauty and the Beast: Aesthetic Experience of Wildlife'. Valuing Wildlife: Economic and Social Perspectives. Eds. Daniel J. Decker and Gary R. Goff (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 187–96. Glenn Parsons, 'The Aesthetic Value of Animals'. Environmental Ethics 27 (2007): 151–69. Week 7: Pluralism Parsons, AN, ch. 5. Noël Carroll, 'On Being Moved by Nature: Between Religion and Natural History'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 244–66. Reprinted in ANE. Yuriko Saito, 'Appreciating Nature on its Own Terms'. Environmental Ethics 20 (1998): 135–49. Reprinted in ANE. Ronald Hepburn, 'Nature Humanized: Nature Respected'. Environmental Values 7 (1998): 267–79. Ronald Hepburn, 'Trivial and Serious in Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 65–80. Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson, 'New Formalism and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62 (2004): 363–76. Week 8: Engagement Parsons, AN, ch. 6. Arnold Berleant, 'The Aesthetics of Art and Nature'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 228–43. Reprinted in ANE. Cheryl Foster, 'The Narrative and the Ambient in Environmental Aesthetics'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 127–37. Reprinted in ANE. Allen Carlson, 'Aesthetics and Engagement'. British Journal of Aesthetics 33 (1993): 220–27. Week 9: The Sublime Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment. Trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge University Press, 2000 [1790]). Excerpts from sections 23–9. Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Ed. James T. Boulton (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968 [1757]). Excerpts from Pt. II, sections 1–8. Ronald Hepburn, 'The Concept of the Sublime: Has it any Relevance for Philosophy Today?'. Dialectics and Humanism 15 (1988): 137–55. Stan Godlovitch, 'Icebreakers: Environmentalism and Natural Aesthetics'. Journal of Applied Philosophy 11 (1994): 15–30. Reprinted in ANE. Malcolm Budd, 'Delight in the Natural World: Kant on the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature. Part I: The Sublime in Nature'. British Journal of Aesthetics 38 (1998): 233–50. Week 10: Aesthetic Preservation Parsons, AN, ch. 7. Janna Thompson, 'Aesthetics and the Value of Nature'. Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): 291–305. Holmes Rolston III, 'From Beauty to Duty: Aesthetics of Nature and Environmental Ethics'. Environment and the Arts: Perspectives on Environmental Aesthetics. Ed. Arnold Berleant (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002), 127–41. Ned Hettinger, 'Allen Carlson's Environmental Aesthetics and Protection of the Environment'. Environmental Ethics 27 (2005): 57–76. Keekok Lee, 'Beauty for Ever?'. Environmental Values 4 (1995): 213–25. Week 11: Gardens Parsons, AN, ch. 8. Mara Miller, The Garden as an Art (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993), ch. 1. Mara Miller, 'Gardens as Works of Art: The Problem of Uniqueness'. British Journal of Aesthetics 26 (1986): 252–6. Stephanie Ross, What Gardens Mean (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), chs. 1, 7. Tom Leddy, 'Gardens in an Expanded Field'. British Journal of Aesthetics 28 (1988): 327–40. David Cooper, 'In Praise of Gardens'. British Journal of Aesthetics 43 (2003): 101–13. Week 12: Art in Nature Parsons, AN, ch. 9. Carlson, 'Is Environmental Art an Aesthetic Affront to Nature?', AE, ch. 10. Sheila Lintott, 'Ethically Evaluating Land Art: Is It Worth It?'. Ethics, Place & Environment 10 (2007): 263–77. Emily Brady, 'Aesthetic Regard for Nature in Environmental and Land Art'. Ethics, Place & Environment 10 (2007): 287–300. Focus Questions1. Are there any important differences between the aesthetic appreciation of art and the aesthetic appreciation of nature? If so, what are they?2. Is preserving nature for its aesthetic value a coherent idea?3. What is the ugliest natural thing or place you can think of? How might proponents of Positive Aesthetics for nature deal with your example?4. Does the concept of the sublime have any significance for our contemporary experience of nature? If it does, what relation does it bear to our aesthetic appreciation of nature?5. Watch Rivers and Tides (2001), the documentary film about the British environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy. Ethically speaking, how do you think we ought to regard his art-making? (shrink)

Henry Leonard and Karel Lambert first introduced so-called presupposition-free (or just simply: free) logics in the 1950’s in order to provide a logical framework allowing for non-denoting singular terms (be they descriptions or constants) such as “the largest prime” or “Pegasus” (see Leonard [1956] and Lambert [1960]). Of course, ever since Russell’s paradigmatic treatment of definite descriptions (Russell [1905]), philosophers have had a way to deal with such terms. A sentence such as “the..

A propositional system of modal logic is second-order if it contains quantifiers ∀p and ∃p, which, in the standard interpretation, are construed as ranging over sets of possible worlds (propositions). Most second-order systems of modal logic are highly intractable; for instance, when augmented with propositional quantifiers, K, B, T, K4 and S4 all become effectively equivalent to full second-order logic. An exception is S5, which, being interpretable in monadic second-order logic, is decidable.

Logic is an ancient discipline that, ever since its inception some 2500 years ago, has been concerned with the analysis of patterns of valid reasoning. Aristotle first developed the theory of the syllogism (a valid argument form involving predicates and quantifiers), and later the Stoics singled out patterns of propositional argumentation (involving sentential connectives). The study of logic flourished in ancient times and during the middle ages, when logic was regarded, together with grammar and rhetoric (the other two disciplines of (...) the trivium), as the foundation of humanistic education. (shrink)

Despite Christopher Stone’s recent argument on behalf of moral pluralism, the principal architects of environmental ethics remain committed to moral monism. Moral pluralism fails to specify what to do when two or more of its theories indicate inconsistent practical imperatives. More deeply, ethical theories are embedded in moral philosophies and moral pluralism requires us to shift between mutually inconsistent metaphysics of morals, most of which are no Ionger tenable in light of postmodern science. A univocal moral philosophy-traceable to David Hume’s (...) and Adam Smith’s theory of moral sentiments, grounded in evolutionary biology by Charles Darwin, and latterly extended to the environment by Aldo Leopold-provides a unified, scientifically supported world view and portrait of human nature in whichmultiple, lexically ordered ethics are generated by multiple human, “mixed,” and “biotic” community memberships. (shrink)

Due programmi diversi si intersecano nel lavoro di Frege sui fondamenti dell’aritmetica: • Logicismo: l’aritmetica `e riducibile alla logica; • Estensionalismo: l’aritmetica `e riducibile a una teoria delle estensioni. Sia nei Fondamenti che nei Principi, Frege articola l’idea che l’aritmetica sia riducibile a una teoria logica delle estensioni.

In this paper, we explore Fregean metatheory, what Frege called the New Science. The New Science arises in the context of Frege’s debate with Hilbert over independence proofs in geometry and we begin by considering their dispute. We propose that Frege’s critique rests on his view that language is a set of propositions, each immutably equipped with a truth value (as determined by the thought it expresses), so to Frege it was inconceivable that axioms could even be considered to be (...) other than true. Because of his adherence to this view, Frege was precluded from the sort of metatheoretical considerations that were available to Hilbert; but from this, we shall argue, it does not follow that Frege was blocked from metatheory in toto. Indeed, Frege suggests in Die Grundlagen der Geometrie a metatheoretical method for establishing independence proofs in the context of the New Science. Frege had reservations about the method, however, primarily because of the apparent need to stipulate the logical terms, those terms that must be held invariant to obtain such proofs. We argue that Frege’s skepticism on this score is not warranted, by showing that within the New Science a characterization of logical truth and logical constant can be obtained by a suitable adaptation of the permutation argument Frege employs in indicating how to prove independence. This establishes a foundation for Frege’s metatheoretical method of which he himself was unsure, and allows us to obtain a clearer understanding of Frege’s conception of logic, especially in relation to contemporary conceptions. (shrink)

Computational machineries dedicated to the attribution of legal responsibility should be based on (or, make use of) a stack of definitions relating the notion of legal responsibility to a number of suitably chosen causal notions. This paper presents a general analysis of legal responsibility and of causation in fact based on Hart and Honoré’s work. Some physical aspects of causation in fact are then treated within the “lite” version of DOLCE foundational ontology written in OWL-DL, a standard description logic for (...) the Semantic Web. (shrink)

I argue for an environmental virtue ethics which specifies human excellence and flourishing in relation to nature. I consider Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson as environmental virtue ethicists, and show that these writers share certain ethical positions that any environmental virtue ethics worthy of the name must embrace. These positions include putting economic life in its proper,subordinate place within human life as a whole; cultivating scientific knowledge, while appreciating its limits; extending moral considerability to the nonhuman (...) world; and supporting wilderness protection. I argue that Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson themselves exemplify the potential for cultivating excellence in engagement with wild nature: their lives are among our most powerful arguments for its preservation. (shrink)

Il dibattito sul ruolo e le implicazioni del teorema di Gödel per l'intelligenza artificiale ha recentemente ricevuto nuovo impeto grazie a due importanti volumi pubblicati da Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind [1989] e Shadows of the Mind [1994]. Naturalmente, Penrose non è il primo né l'ultimo a usare il teorema di Gödel allo scopo di trarne conseguenze per i fondamenti dell'intelligenza artificiale. Tuttavia il recente dibattito suscitato dai due libri di Penrose è significativo sia per ampiezza sia per profondità. (...) In queste pagine si vuole dare una rassegna di tale dibattito, cominciando dai suoi precursori negli anni '60 (fra cui Lucas, Putnam, e Chihara), per passare poi alle complesse argomentazioni proposte da Penrose e le reazioni di una serie di commentatori (ad esempio Dennett, Feferman, McDermott, Davis). (shrink)

This paper presents a formalization of first-order arithmetic characterizing the natural numbers as abstracta of the equinumerosity relation. The formalization turns on the interaction of a nonstandard (but still first-order) cardinality quantifier with an abstraction operator assigning objects to predicates. The project draws its philosophical motivation from a nonreductionist conception of logicism, a deflationary view of abstraction, and an approach to formal arithmetic that emphasizes the cardinal properties of the natural numbers over the structural ones.

This paper is concerned with the way different axiom systems for set theory can be justified by appeal to such intuitions as limitation of size, predicativity, stratification, etc. While none of the different conceptions historically resulting from the impetus to provide a solution to the paradoxes turns out to rest on an intuition providing an unshakeable foundation,'each supplies a picture of the set-theoretic universe that is both useful and internally well motivated. The same is true of more recently proposed axiom (...) systems for non-well-founded universes, and an attempt is made to motivate such axiom systems on the basis of an old and respected ‘algebraic’ intuition. (shrink)

The term "non-monotonic logic" covers a family of formal frameworks devised to capture and represent defeasible inference , i.e., that kind of inference of everyday life in which reasoners draw conclusions tentatively, reserving the right to retract them in the light of further information. Such inferences are called "non-monotonic" because the set of conclusions warranted on the basis of a given knowledge base does not increase (in fact, it can shrink) with the size of the knowledge base itself. This is (...) in contrast to classical (first-order) logic, whose inferences, being deductively valid, can never be "undone" by new information. (shrink)

In this article, ambiguity attitude is measured through the maximum price a decision maker is willing to pay to know the probability of an event. Two problems are examined in which the decision maker faces an act: in one case, buying information implies playing a lottery, while, in the other case, buying information gives also the option to avoid playing the lottery. In both decision settings, relying on the Choquet expected utility model, we study how the decision maker’s risk and (...) ambiguity attitudes affect the reservation price for ambiguity resolution. These effects are analyzed for different levels of ambiguity of the act. Operating instructions for the elicitation of the reservation price for ambiguity resolution in an experimental setting are provided at the end of the article. (shrink)

Environmental ethics in its modem classical expression by Aldo Leopold appears to fall afoul of Hume’s prohibition against deriving ought-statements from is-statements since it is presented as a logical consequence of the science of ecology. Hume’s is/ought dichotomy is reviewed in its historical theoretical context. A general formulation bridging is and ought, in Hume’s terms, meeting his own criteria for sound practical argument, is found. It is then shown that Aldo Leopold’s land ethic is expressible as a special (...) case of this general formulation. Hence Leopold’s land ethic, despite its direct passage from descriptive scientific premises to prescriptive normative conclusions, is not in violation of any logical strictures which Hume would impose upon axiological reasoning. (shrink)

∗A special thanks to those who have assisted my archival research, including Aldo Antonelli, John Burgess, Michael Della Rocca, Herbert Enderton, Bernard Linsky, Heidi Lockwood, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Julien Murzi and Bas van Fraassen. An extra special thanks to Julien Murzi, who as my research assistant in the Fall of 2005 helped me to identify and think more clearly about the famous anonymous referee reports, which are central to the present paper. For discussion and/or assistance I am also grateful (...) to many others, including Scott Berman, Berit Brogaard, Judy Crane, Susan Brower- Toland, David Chalmers, Solomon Feferman, Nick Griffin, Michael Hand, Monte Johnson, Jon Kvanvig, Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, Robert Meyer, Andreas Niederberger, Gualtiero Piccinini, Graham Priest, Krister Segerberg, Wilfried Sieg, Roy Sorensen, Kent Staley, Jim Stone, Neil Tennant, Achille Varzi, Nick Zavediuk, anonymous readers for OUP, and audience members at the Pacific APA in Portland (March 24, 2006), the Goethe University of Frankfurt (May 15, 2006), the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam (May 23, 2006), and the Namicona Epistemology Workshop, at the University of Copenhagen (August 22, 2006). Thanks also to my department at Saint Louis University for granting time and resources to research and write the paper. (shrink)

It is argued that certain individuals can and should be considered 'morally exemplary' with respect to the environment. This can be so even where there is no universally applicable ethical principle they employ, and no canonical set of virtues they exhibit. The author identifies Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard and Edward Abbey as potential 'environmental exemplars,' focusing for the purposes of the essay on individuals who have written compelling autobiographical works in defense of a way of life (...) that is both attuned to the values of a particular place and attentive to the humanistic concerns that have more traditionally been the locus of ethical thought. (shrink)

The etymological origin of ecology in the human house is the point of departure of this article. It argues that oikos is not merely a vague metaphor for ecology, but that built households provide a key to understanding the household of nature. Three households support this claim: the cabins of Henry Thoreau, Aldo Leopold and Arne Noess. The article suggests that their views on the household of nature stand in direct relationship with their respective homes. They also have a (...) distant epistemological bird's-eye view of nature seen from homes which were located - symbolically or in reality - on a mountain top. (shrink)

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The conceptual foundations of Aldo Leopold's seminal land ethic are traceable through Darwin to the sentiment?based ethics of Hume. According to Hume, the moral sentiments are universal; and, according to Darwin, they were naturally selected in the intensely social matrix of human evolution. Hence they may provide a ?consensus of feeling?, functionally equivalent to the normative force of reason overriding inclination. But then ethics, allege K. S. Shrader?Frechette and W. Fox, is reduced to a description of human nature, and (...) the question remains open whether one really ought or ought not value, approve, or do this or that. The moral sentiments, however, are informed by culture. Specific ethical injunctions, even so, are not culturally relative, because cultural beliefs are amenable to cognitive criticism. New experience and new discoveries of science may bring to light hitherto unrecognized ?proper objects? of our moral sentiments. (shrink)

Deleuze reworks Marxist concepts in order to identify those that represent discontinuity and produce a theory of revolution. Marx is important because, along with Spinoza and Nietzsche, he is a part of a project to leave behind concepts such as transcendence and univocity which underlie the totalitarianism of traditional philosophy. Deleuze is looking for concepts that might form a different theory, within which the structures of production are not organised vertically by the domination of universal concepts, such as ‘being’ or (...) ‘essence’, but flow horizontally through a multiplicity of relations of conceptual singularity. The production of a different series of concepts is a strategic and tactical operation that, in confronting prior notions of transcendental philosophy, turns philosophy itself into a battlefield. Marx provides the general methodology for this tactical approach through two fundamental categories: production and conflict. Deleuze practises Marx's theoretical method and by using Marx's own central concepts challenges traditional Marxism, to arrive at a totally different and revolutionary philosophical structure based on concepts such as those of force, variation, difference, singularity, production and the war machine. (shrink)

Aldo Leopold in “The Land Ethic” made the case for an environmental ethic as both a moral imperative and an unfolding historical process. In The Civilising Process, Norbert Elias shows how, in all societies, the molding of personality and the internalization of affective constraints on behavior are linked to long-term processes of social development. In terms of a common root in Darwinian/Humean naturalism, an understanding of the land ethic as an “ecological civilizing process” can shed light on the sociogenetic (...) mechanisms which are transforming, albeit slowly, the “foundations of conduct” toward the environment. In this transformation, expanded notions of kinship and proximity provide the basis for the deontological identification of community with the biosphere. (shrink)

This paper presents a bivalent extensional semantics for positive free logic without resorting to the philosophically questionable device of using models endowed with a separate domain of non-existing objects. The models here introduced have only one (possibly empty) domain, and a partial reference function for the singular terms (that might be undefined at some arguments). Such an approach provides a solution to an open problem put forward by Lambert, and can be viewed as supplying a version of parametrized truth non (...) unlike the notion of truth at world found in modal logic. A model theory is developed, establishing compactness, interpolation (implying a strong form of Beth definability), and completeness (with respect to a particular axiomatization). (shrink)

We present an axiomatic approach for a class of finite, extensive form games of perfect information that makes use of notions like rationality at a node and knowledge at a node. We distinguish between the game theorist's and the players' own theory of the game. The latter is a theory that is sufficient for each player to infer a certain sequence of moves, whereas the former is intended as a justification of such a sequence of moves. While in general the (...) game theorist's theory of the game is not and need not be axiomatized, the players' theory must be an axiomatic one, since we model players as analogous to automatic theorem provers that play the game by inferring (or computing) a sequence of moves. We provide the players with an axiomatic theory sufficient to infer a solution for the game (in our case, the backwards induction equilibrium), and prove its consistency. We then inquire what happens when the theory of the game is augmented with information that a move outside the inferred solution has occurred. We show that a theory that is sufficient for the players to infer a solution and still remains consistent in the face of deviations must be modular. By this we mean that players have distributed knowledge of it. Finally, we show that whenever the theory of the game is group-knowledge (or common knowledge) among the players (i.e., it is the same at each node), a deviation from the solution gives rise to inconsistencies and therefore forces a revision of the theory at later nodes. On the contrary, whenever a theory of the game is modular, a deviation from equilibrium play does not induce a revision of the theory. (shrink)

Modern agriculture is subject to a metaphysical as well as an ethical critique. As a casual review of the beliefs associated with food production in the past suggests, modern agriculture is embedded in and informed by the prevailing modern world view, Newtonian Mechanics, which is bankrupt as a scientific paradigm and unsustainable as an agricultural motif. A new holistic, organic world view is emerging from ecology and the new physics marked by four general conceptual features: Each level of organization from (...) atoms to ecosystems (1) exhibits emergent properties, (2) exerts downward causation from whole to part, (3) is a systemically integrated whole, (4) the parts of which are internally related. Organic agriculture has been favourably compared with industrial agriculture by the United States National Academy of Science's Board on Agriculture. Aldo Leopold was among the first to criticize industrial agriculture and to envision a new motif for agriculture informed by ecology. A future post-modern ecological agriculture will help to solve the ethical problems engendered by modern mechanical agriculture. (shrink)

Wilderness, for seventeenth-century Puritan colonists in America, was hideous and howling. In the eighteenth century, Puritan preacher and theologian, Jonathan Edwards, began the process of transforming the American wilderness into an aesthetic and spiritual resource, a process completed in the nineteenth century by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry David. Thoreau was the first American to recommend wilderness preservation for purposes of transcendental recreation (solitude, and aesthetic and spiritual experience). In the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold advocated wilderness preservation (...) for a different kind of recreation (hunting, fishing, and primitive travel) in order to preserve the putatively unique American character and institutions. Of these three historic conceptions of wilderness preservation, the third is the best model for frontier ecosystems at the austral tip of the Americas. (shrink)

Many different modes of definition have been proposed over time, but none of them allows for circular definitions, since, according to the prevalent view, the term defined would then be lacking a precise signification. I argue that although circular definitions may at times fail uniquely to pick out a concept or an object, sense still can be made of them by using a rule of revision in the style adopted by Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap in the theory of truth.

In the last decades of the twentieth century universities in Europe and other OECD countries have undergone a profound transformation. They have evolved from mainly élite institutions for teaching and research to large (public and private) organisations responsible for mass higher education and the production and distribution of new knowledge. Increasingly, new knowledge is produced by universities not only for its own sake but also for potential economic gains.

Universities have long been involved in knowledge transfer activities. Yet the last 30 years have seen major changes in the governance of university–industry interactions. Knowledge transfer has become a strategic issue: as a source of funding for university research and (rightly or wrongly) as a policy tool for economic development. Universities vary enormously in the extent to which they promote and succeed in commercializing academic research. The identification of clear-cut models of governance for university–industry interactions and knowledge transfer processes is (...) not straightforward. The purpose of this article is to critically discuss university knowledge transfer models and review the recent developments in the literature on research collaborations, intellectual property rights and spin-offs, those forms of knowledge transfer that are more formalized and have been institutionalized in recent years. The article also addresses the role played by university knowledge transfer organizations in promoting commercialization of research results. (shrink)

Aldo Leopold’s “Land Ethic” centers on the maxim: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” I contribute to the critical appraisal of this maxim by providing answers to the following questions: (1) what is referred to by the phrase “the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community”? (2) What “things” tend to preserve or threaten the integrity, stability, and beauty ofthe (...) biotic community? (3) Are the integrity, stability, and beauty ofthe biotic community goods such that preserving them is right and failing to do so wrong? (shrink)

: None dispute that Aldo Leopold has made an invaluable contribution to environmental discourse. However, it is important for those involved in the field of environmental ethics to be aware that his works may unwittingly promote an attitude of domination toward the nonhuman world, due to his frequent and unregenerate hunting. Such an attitude runs counter to most strains of environmental ethics, but most notably ecofeminism. By examining Leopold through the lens of ecofeminism, I establish that the effect of (...) such narrative is to portray the natural world as an object available for exploitation, thereby casting it as the "other" referred to in feminist writings. Thus I conclude that Leopold's work, if accepted uncritically, may actually reinforce the very notions that have been revealed as damaging to the nature/culture relationship. (shrink)

Quine’s “New Foundations” (NF) was first presented in Quine [1937] and later on in Quine [1963]. Ernst Specker [1958, 1962], building upon a previous result of Ehrenfeucht and Mostowski [1956], showed that NF is consistent if and only if there is a model of the Theory of Negative (and positive) Types (TNT) with full extensionality that admits of a “shifting automorphism,” but the existence of a such a model remains an open problem.

In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle takes up the position of those who hold that all knowledge is demonstrable, and, hence, scientific. Such people are said to base their arguments on the fact that some demonstrations are circular or reciprocal (72b251). As Aristotle makes clear in the text, a circular demonstration consists of an argument (form) in which the conclusion is equivalent to one of the premises. But as Aristotle hastens to point out, demonstrations cannot be circular, for the essence of (...) demonstration is to proceed from what is prior to what is posterior, and the same things cannot be both prior and posterior. A circular demonstration has the form ‘if A is, then B must be;’ and ‘if B is, then A must be’: “consequently, the upholders of circular demonstration are in the position of saying that if A is, A must be—a simple way of proving anything” (73a5). (shrink)

In economics and in the social sciences, the study of decision making of the single individual is an important preliminary step to provide a sound foundation for the analysis of equilibria in economic and social systems. Neuroeconomic analysis of the process has been a recent fruitful development in this direction. In the more recent past a new direction of research has emerged, studying the interplay of the decision making of the single individual with the economic and social environment that surrounds (...) him. We review some of the results in this field, both theoretical and experimental, and suggest that a closer development of these two methods of research will be necessary in the future. (shrink)

The idea that animal rights can be married to environmental ethics is still a minority opinion. The land ethic of Aldo Leopold, as interpreted by J. Baird Callicott, remains fundamentally at odds with the ascription of substantial rights to (nonhuman) animals. Similarly, Laura Westra’s notion of “respectful hostility,” which attempts to reconcile a holistic environmental ethic with “respect” for animals, has no place for animal rights.In this paper, I argue that only by ascribing rights to sentient animals can an (...) environmental ethic avoid an unacceptable degree of anthropocentrism because only a rights-based environmental ethic can prohibit humans from significantly interfering with sentient animals when human vital needs are not at stake. A rights view that permits significant interference when it is required for the satisfaction of human vital needs avoids problems that otherwise plague a rights view. The “vital-needs rights view” reconciles the rights of animals with the satisfaction of human vital needs—including the vital need to have a flourishing natural environment—suggesting a possible alliance between animal rights and deep ecology and revealing the connections among vital needs, capitalism, and environmental degradation. (shrink)

One of the most important developments over the last twenty years both in logic and in Artificial Intelligence is the emergence of so-called non-monotonic logics. These logics were initially developed by McCarthy [10], McDermott & Doyle [13], and Reiter [17]. Part of the original motivation was to provide a formal framework within which to model cognitive phenomena such as defeasible inference and defeasible knowledge representation, i.e., to provide a formal account of the fact that reasoners can reach conclusions tentatively, reserving (...) the right to retract them in the light of further information. (shrink)

Frege’s logicist program requires that arithmetic be reduced to logic. Such a program has recently been revamped by the “neo-logicist” approach of Hale & Wright. Less attention has been given to Frege’s extensionalist program, according to which arithmetic is to be reconstructed in terms of a theory of extensions of concepts. This paper deals just with such a theory. We present a system of second-order logic augmented with a predicate representing the fact that an object x is the extension of (...) a concept C, together with extra-logical axioms governing such a predicate, and show that arithmetic can be obtained in such a framework. As a philosophical payoff, we investigate the status of so-called “Hume’s Principle,” and its connections to the root of the contradiction in Frege’s system. (shrink)

We present an axiomatic approach for a class of finite, extensive form ganies of perfect information that makes use of notions like "rationality at a node" and "knowledge at a node." We show that, in general, a theory that is sufEcient to infer an equilibrium must be modular: for each subgame G' of a game G the theory of game G must contain just enough inforniation about the subgame G' to infer an equilibrium for G'. This means, in general, that (...) the level of knowledge relative to any subgame of G must not be the same as the level of knowledge relative to tlie original game G. We show that whenever the theory of the game is the same at each node, a deviation from equilibrium play forces a revision of the theory at later nodes. On the contrary, whenever a theory of the game is modular, a deviation from equilibrium play does not cause any revision of the theory of the game. (shrink)

Kleene comincia la sezione §60 di Introduction to metamathematics considerando la questione se la matematica informale, e specialmente la teoria intuitiva dei numeri sia formalizzabile. Il classico teorema di G¨.

Leopold first discusses the conservation of natural resources in the southwestern United States in economic tenns, stressing, in particular, erosion and aridity. He then concludes his analysis with a discussion of the moral issues involved, developing his general position within the context of P. D. Ouspenky’s early philosophy of organism.

Concentrating on the views of Christopher Stone, who advocates moral pluralism, and J. Baird Callicott, who criticizes Stone’s views, I argue that the debate has been confused by a conflation of three different positions, here called minimal, moderate, and extreme moral pluralism. Minimal pluralism is uncontroversial because all known moral theories are minimally pluralistic. Extreme pluralism is defective in the ways that Callicott alleges and, moreover, is inconsistent with integrity in the moral life. However, moderate pluralism of the sort that (...) I advance in Environmental Justice is distinct from extreme pluralism and free of its defects. It is also consistent with Callicott’s version of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, which is itself moderately pluralistic. (shrink)

In §21 of Grundgesetze der Arithmetik asks us to consider the forms: a a2 = 4 and a a > 0 and notices that they can be obtained from a φ(a) by replacing the function-name placeholder φ(ξ) by names for the functions ξ2 = 4 and ξ > 0 (and the placeholder cannot be replaced by names of objects or of functions of 2 arguments).

With the aid of a non-standard (but still first-order) cardinality quantifier and an extra-logical operator representing numerical abstraction, this paper presents a formalization of first-order arithmetic, in which numbers are abstracta of the equinumerosity relation, their properties derived from those of the cardinality quantifier and the abstraction operator.

Earth’s Insights is about more than indigenous North American environmental attitudes and values. The conclusions of Hester, McPherson, Booth, and Cheney about universal indigenous environmental attitudes and values, although pronounced with papal infallibility, are based on no evidence. The unstated authority of their pronouncements seems to be the indigenous identity of two of the authors. Two other self-identified indigenous authors, V. F. Cordova and Sandy Marie Anglás Grande, argue explicitly that indigenous identity is sufficient authority for declaring what pre-Columbian indigenous (...) environmental attitudes and values were. Exclusive knowledge claims based on essentialist racial-cultural identity, though politically motivated, are politically risky. They may inadvertently legitimate more noxious and dangerous racial-cultural identity politics and exclusion of those who identify themselves (or are identified by others) in oppositional racialcultural terms from full and equal participation in the political and economic arenas of the prevailing culture. Biologically, racial differences are entirely superficial; Homo sapiens is a single, homogeneous species. Contrary to Hester et al., ethnic conflict was common among pre-Columbian indigenous North American peoples. Other indigenous authors, among them McPherson, have found my comparison of pre-Columbian indigenous North American attitudes and values with the Aldo Leopold land ethic to be illuminating. I wish I had not said that pre-Columbian indigenous North American attitudes and values are “validated” by ecology, but rather that they and ecology are “mutually validating.”. (shrink)

John Dewey’s theory of value provides a strong alternative to traditional intrinsic value theory that can better address the need for a wide distribution of environmental values. Grounded in his theories of experience and inquiry, Dewey understands values as concrete practices acquired through the interaction of the human organism with its surroundings. Dividing value into acts of immediate valuation and acts of evaluation, Dewey shows that all values start out as desires and through reflective criticism eventuate in value practices. Value (...) inquiry is the practice of responding to problems in the world for which our established value practices are unable to respond adequately. This model of value is shown to be a much needed improvement over intrinsic value theory insofar as it is inclusive of human desire, limiting the capacity to value to human beings, avoids much of the metaphysical and ethical conflict in the biocentrism/ecocentrism debate, as well as rejects the artificial distinction between instrumental and intrinsic value. The case for Dewey’s theory of value is further strengthened by how closely Aldo Leopold’s experience-based practice of value in A Sand County Almanac parallels Dewey’s theory of value, especially with respect to the importance of desire, science, and education. (shrink)

Much philosophical attention has been devoted to “The Land Ethic,” especially by Anglo-American philosophers, but little has been paid to A Sand County Almanac as a whole. Read through the lens of continental philosophy, A Sand County Almanac promulgates an evolutionary-ecological world view and effects a personal self- and a species-specific Self-transformation in its audience. It’s author, Aldo Leopold, realizes these aims through descriptive reflection that has something in common with phenomenology-although Leopold was by no stretch of the imagination (...) a phenomenologist. Consideration of human-animal intersubjectivity, thematized in A Sand County Almanac, brings to light the moral problem of hunting and killing animal subjects. Leopold does not confront that problem, but it is confronted and resolved by Jose Ortega y Gassett, Henry Beston, and Paul Shepard in terms of an appropriate human relationship with wild-animal Others. Comparison with the genuinely Other-based Leopold-Ortega-Beston-Shepard wild-animal ethic shows the purportedly Other-based humanand possibly animal ethic of Emmanuel Levinas actually to be Same-based after all. (shrink)

Benton MacKaye's name is rarely evoked in the fields of environmental history and philosophy. The author of the Appalachian Trail in the early 1920s and a co-founder of the Wilderness Society with Aldo Leopold and Bob Marshall in the 1930s, MacKaye's unique contribution to American environmental thought is seldom recognized. This neglect is particularly egregious in the current debate over the intellectual foundations of the American wilderness idea, a discussion to which I believe MacKaye has much to contribute. Specifically, (...) I believe that his pragmatic vision for wilderness conservation, a project supported through an appeal to the values of a reconstructed "indigenous" communal environment, owes much to the social philosophy of Josiah Royce, MacKaye's former teacher at Harvard. While the Appalachian Trail never delivered on MacKaye's goals of progressive reform and failed to unite the regional planning and conservation communities of the time, his vision remains highly relevant to our present-day deliberations about the relationship between wild nature and society at the dawn of the 21st century. (shrink)

This paper introduces a generalization of Reiter’s notion of “extension” for default logic. The main difference from the original version mainly lies in the way conflicts among defaults are handled: in particular, this notion of “general extension” allows defaults not explicitly triggered to pre-empt other defaults. A consequence of the adoption of such a notion of extension is that the collection of all the general extensions of a default theory turns out to have a nontrivial algebraic structure. This fact has (...) two major technical fall-outs: first, it turns out that every default theory has a general extension; second, general extensions allow one to define a well-behaved, skeptical relation of defeasible consequence for default theories, satisfying the principles of Reflexivity, Cut, and Cautious Monotonicity formulated by D. Gabbay. (shrink)

The purpose of this note is to present a simplification of the system of arithmetical axioms given in previous work; specifically, it is shown how the induction principle can in fact be obtained from the remaining axioms, without the need of explicit postulation. The argument might be of more general interest, beyond the specifics of the proposed axiomatization, as it highlights the interaction of the notion of Dedekind-finiteness and the induction principle.

The purpose of this note is to acknowledge a gap in a previous paper — “The Complexity of Revision”, see [1] — and provide a corrected version of argument. The gap was originally pointed out by Francesco Orilia (personal communication and [4]), and the fix was developed in correspondence with Vann McGee.

The idea of “place” has become a topic of growing interest in environmental ethics literature. I explore a variety of issues surrounding the conceptualization of “place” in bioregional theory. I show that there is a necessary vagueness in bioregional definitions of region or place because these concepts elude any purely objective, geographically literal categorization. I argue that this elusiveness is in fact a great meritbecause it calls attention to a more essential “subjective” and experiential geography of place. I use a (...) reading of Aldo Leopold’s Sand Country Almanac as an example of the value of a non-literalistic geography for the understanding of place. (shrink)

A complete environmental ethic must include a theory of motivation to assure that the demands of that ethic are within the capacity of human beings. J. Baird Callicott has argued that these requisite sentiments may be found in the moral psychology of David Hume, enriched by the insights of Charles Darwin. I reply that, on the contrary, Humean moral sentiments are more likely to incline one toanthropocentrism than to Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, which is defended by Callicott. This mismatch (...) becomes more evident as Callicott attempts to enlist Humean moral sentiments in support of the Leopoldian “land community.” The disanalogies between human and natural communities, I argue, are too great to permit this application. The motivation we need to meet our duties as “citizens of the land community” must be of a nonmoral kind. I suggest that the necessary sentiments may be found in a genetically based “affirmation of nature” that has evolved out of our natural history as a species, shaped by the very forces and contexts that are now put in peril by our technology. (shrink)