It would seem that Geach's claim is that the relation expressed by 'is identical with' is like the relation expressed by 'is better than', at least in one respect. If x and y are people, it may turn out that x is a better golfer than y, while y is a better poet than x. If we merely say that x is better than y, we fail to specify the respect in which we hold x to be the better. Another (...) way to put this is to say that we have not made clear "in relation to what" x is the better. We can call the relation expressed by 'is better than' a "relative relation," since an ordered pair of things may stand in that relation relative to one thing but not relative to another thing. Geach seems to think that identity is a relative relation. (shrink)

There are things we routinely say that may strike us as literally false but that we are nonetheless reluctant to give up. This might be something mundane, like the way we talk about the sun setting in the west, or it could be something much deeper, like engaging in talk that is ostensibly about numbers despite believing that numbers do not literally exist. Rather than regard such behaviour as self-defeating, a "fictionalist" is someone who thinks that this kind of discourse (...) is entirely appropriate, even helpful, so long as we treat what is said as a useful fiction, rather than as the sober truth. "Fictionalism" can be broadly understood as a view that uses a notion of pretense or fiction in order to resolve certain puzzles or problems that otherwise do not necessarily have anything to do with literature or fictional creations. Within contemporary analytic philosophy, fictionalism has been on the scene for well over a decade and has matured during that time, growing in popularity. There are now myriad competing views about fictionalism and consequently the discussion has branched out into many more subdisciplines of philosophy. Yet there is widespread disagreement on what philosophical fictionalism actually amounts to and about how precisely it ought to be pursued. This volume aims to guide these discussions, collecting some of the most up-to-date work on fictionalism and tracing the view's development over the past decade. After a detailed discussion in the book's introductory chapter of how philosophers should think of fictionalism and its connection to metaontology more generally, the remaining chapters provide readers with arguments for and against this view from leading scholars in the fields of epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and others. (shrink)

This collection of recent articles by leading scholars is designed to illuminate one of the greatest and most influential philosophical books of all time. It includes incisive commentary on every major theme and argument in the Meditations, and will be valuable not only to philosophers but to historians, theologians, literary scholars, and interested general readers.

Humans can learn complex functional relationships between variables from small amounts of data. In doing so, they draw on prior expectations about the form of these relationships. In three experiments, we show that people learn to adjust these expectations through experience, learning about the likely forms of the functions they will encounter. Previous work has used Gaussian processes—a statistical framework that extends Bayesian nonparametric approaches to regression—to model human function learning. We build on this work, modeling the process of learning (...) to learn functions as a form of hierarchical Bayesian inference about the Gaussian process hyperparameters. (shrink)

This paper criticises a line of argument adopted by peter winch, Karl popper, And others, To the effect that the course of human history cannot be predicted. On this view it is impossible to predict in a particularly detailed way certain events ('original acts') on which important social developments depend. We analyze the argument, Showing that one version fails: original acts are in principle predictable in the relevant way. A cogent version is presented; this requires a special definition for 'original (...) act'. But, We claim, Social developments do not depend on original acts so defined. We argue separately for the possibility of a person, Or a scientific community, Predicting his or its own original acts. (shrink)

Kants Vernunftkritik hat das Wissen zugunsten des Glaubens aufgehoben. Angeregt vor allem durch F.H. Jacobi, wird das Verhältnis von Glauben und Vernunft in der Philosophie nach Kant erneut zu einem zentralen Thema. Zur Entscheidung stehen die Fragen, ob der Glaube das Fundament von Wissen sein kann, ob der Glaube eine Grenze der Vernunft markiert oder ob eine absolut ges.

This book provides practical and research-based chapters that offer greater clarity about the particular kinds of teacher reflection that matter and avoids talking about teacher reflection generically, which implies that all kinds of reflection are of equal value.

This paper joins the voices warning against hasty transference of legal concepts of presumption to other kinds of argumentation, especially to deliberation about future acts and policies. Comparison of the pragmatics which respectively constitute the illocutionary acts of accusing and proposing reveals important differences in the ways presumptions prompt accusers and proposers to undertake probative responsibilities and, also, points to corresponding differences in their probative duties. This comparison has theoretically important implication regarding the norms governing persuasive argumentation. The paper is (...) based on a broadly Gricean account of speech acts. (shrink)

The debate between externalists and internalists in epistemology can be viewed as a disagreement about whether there are epistemic rights without corresponding duties or obligations. Taking an epistemic right to believe P as an authorization to not only accept P as true but to use P as a positive reason for accepting other propositions, the debate is about whether there are unjustified justifiers. It is about whether there are propositions that provide for others what nothing need provide for them—viz., reasons (...) for thinking them true. (shrink)

Externalism about knowledge commits one to a modest form of contextualism: whether one knows depends (or may depend) on circumstances (context) of which one has no knowledge. Such modest contextualism requires the rejection of the KK Principle (If S knows that P, then S knows that S knows that P) - something most people would want to reject anyway - but it does not require (though it is compatible with) a rejection of closure. Radical contextualism, on the other hand, goes (...) a step farther and relativizes knowledge not just to the circumstances of the knower, but to the circumstances of the person attributing knowledge. I reject this more radical form of contextualism and suggest that it confuses (or that it can, at least, be avoided by carefully distinguishing) the relativity in what S is said to know from the relativity in whether S knows what S is said to know. (shrink)

Policy Review, the organ of the conservative Heritage Foundation, devoted their winter 1984 issue to lamenting the failures of the Reagan administration. Publisher M. Stan ton Evans complained that “This has been essentially another Ford Administration, … not much different from any other Republican administration in our lifetime. While the other Senator from Colorado, arch-conservative William Armstrong noted that Reagan had ‘managed to polarize the country over budget cuts that didn't happen.” “He cut the budget,” bemoaned Armstrong, “enough to make (...) the special interests and the press mad, but not enough” to restructure the government. For his part, National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) chair Terry Donlan has complained of the administration failure to move on its social agenda. (shrink)

Closure is the epistemological thesis that if S knows that P and knows that P implies Q, then if S infers that Q, S knows that Q. Fred Dretske acknowledges that closure is plausible but contends that it should be rejected because it conflicts with the plausible thesis: Conclusive reasons (CR): S knows that P only if S believes P on the basis of conclusive reasons, i.e., reasons S wouldn‘t have if it weren‘t the case that P. Dretske develops (...) an analysis of knowing that centers on CR, and argues that the requirement undermines skepticism by implying the falsity of closure. We develop a Dretske-style analysis of knowing that incorporates CR, and we argue that this analysis not only accords with closure, but also implies it. In addition, we argue that the analysis accounts for the prima facie plausibility of closure-invoking skeptical arguments, and nonetheless implies that they are fallacious. If our arguments turn out to be sound, the acceptability of Dretske‘s analysis of knowing will be significantly enhanced by the fact that, despite implying closure, it undermines closure-based skepticism. (shrink)

Cairns, D. My own life.--Chapman, H. The phenomenon of language.--Embree, L. E. An interpretation of the doctrine of the ego in Husserl's Ideen.--Farber, M. The philosophic impact of the facts themselves.--Gurwitsch, A. Perceptual coherence as the foundation of the judgment of prediction.--Hartshorne, C. Husserl and Whitehead on the concrete.--Jordan, R. W. Being and time: some aspects of the ego's involvement in his mental life.--Kersten, F. Husserl's doctrine of noesis-noema.--McGill, V. J. Evidence in Husserl's phenomenology.--Natanson, M. Crossing the Manhattan Bridge.--Spiegelberg, H. (...) Husserl's way into phenomenology for Americans: a letter and its sequel.--Zaner, R. M. The art of free phantasy in rigorous phenomenological science.--Cairns, D. An approach to Husserlian phenomenology.--Cairns, D. The ideality of verbal expressions.--Cairns, D. Perceiving, remembering, image-awareness, feigning awareness.--Bibliography of the writings of Dorion Cairns (p. [263]-264). (shrink)

Introduction: reenvisaging freedom and solidarity -- Twilights and new dawns: revaluation and de(con)struction -- Letting-be politically: Heidegger on freedom and solidarity -- The promise of democracy: nonpossessive freedom and caring solidarity -- Markets and democracy: beyond neoliberalism -- Rights and right(ness): humanity at the crossroads -- "Man against the state": community and dissent -- Faith and communicative freedom: a tribute to Wolfgang Huber -- Between holism and totalitarianism: remembering Dimitry Likhachev -- Freedom as engaged social praxis: lessons from D.P. Chattopadhyaya (...) -- Freedom and solidarity (again): reimagining social democracy. (shrink)

Though one believes that P is true, one can have reasons for thinking it false. Yet, it seems that one cannot know that P is true and (still) have reasons for thinking it false. Why is this so? What feature of knowledge (or of reasons) precludes having reasons or evidence to believe (true) what you know to be false? If the connection between reasons (evidence) and what one believes is expressible as a probability relation, it would seem that the only (...) satisfactory explanation of this fact is that when one knows that P is true, the reasons or evidence one has in support of P are such as to confer upon P the probability of 1. It is shown by an application of Bayes' Theorem that any value smaller than 1 would permit having reasons to believe what one knows to be false. Hence, it would seem that knowledge requires conclusive reasons to believe (if reasons or evidence is required at all). (shrink)

Melnyk complains that my account of the way reasons explain behaviour cannot be extended to cover novel behaviours. I admit that I did not extend it, but deny that it is not extendible. This, indeed, is what Chapter 6 of Dretske (1988) was all about. Noordhof finds faults with my account and claims there is another account (partial supervenience) that does a better job. I acknowledge one of the defects—a defect I was aware of when I wrote the book‐but deny (...) that the partial supervenience of content on intrinsic properties represents a better theory of the explanatory role of content. (shrink)

I would like to record my thanks to Paul Thompson for useful conver sations over the years, and also to several generations of students who have helped me develop my ideas on biological theory and on Darwin. My wife has, as usual, been more than helpful; in particular she typed a good portion of the manuscript while I was on leave a few years ago, more now than I like to remember. My parents were both looking forward to holding a (...) final copy of this book. I only regret that my mother did not live long enough to see its completion. I must also thank the publishers and their staff. They have been re markably patient about meeting deadlines - promises were repeatedly made and then, owing to family situations, had to be broken - and for this I am considerably in their debt. I would further like to thank the following authors and publishers for permission to use their work: R. C. Lewontin, The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, Figure 1, p. 14; © 1964 Columbia University Press; reprinted here by kind permission of the author and publisher. F. Wilson, 'Goudge's Contribution to the Philosophy of Science', in L. W. Sumner, J. G. Slater, and F. Wilson (eds.), Pragmatism and Purpose: Essays in Honour of T. A. Goudge; © 1964 University of Toronto Press; reproduced here in part by kind permission of all the editors and the publisher. (shrink)

A diverse group of contributors reflect on the philosophical legacy of Fred Sommers and his efforts to revive and refashion traditional Aristotelian logic for a post-Fregean world.

This volume is a collection of new and previously published essays focusing on one of the most exciting and actively discussed topics in contemporary philosophy: naturalistic theories of mental content. The volume brings together important papers written by some of the most distinguished theorists working in the field today. Authors contributing to the volume include Jerry Fodor, Rugh Millikan, Fred Dretske, Ned Block, Robert Cummins, and Daniel Dennett.

Frederick Dretske′s views on the nature of seeing, the possibility of knowledge, the nature of content or non-natural meaning, the nature of behavior, and the role of content in teh causal explanation of behavior have been profoundly important. Dretske and His Critics contains original discussions of these issues by Joh Heil, Stuart Cohen, David H Sanford, Jaegwon Kim, Fred Adams, Daniel Dennett, Robert Cummins, Terence Horgan and Brian McLaughlin. Each chapter is responded to by Dretske himslef.

The various papers and short "discussions" contained in this latest addition to the "Studies in Logic" series were presented at the 1965 International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, in London. Of the nine "problems" considered in this symposium, seven have directly to do with philosophy, one is an historical study of the origins of Euclid's axiomatics, and the last is an interesting—if one-sided—discussion of the "new math" controversy in the pre-college curriculum. Happily, this book demonstrates that the important issues (...) in the philosophy of mathematics somewhat outrun the usual ism-mongering debate between representatives of various schools. Unhappily, it also demonstrates that a good deal of undeserving material seems to find its way between the covers of scholarly books. After reading certain of the articles in this volume one is left with the feeling that the authors have not come to grips with the issues which they raise, that a lot of effort has been expended on peripheral matters, and that, in some instances, a sledge hammer has been brought down upon an egg. Abraham Robinson's article, "The Metaphysics of the Calculus," deals with a series of important linguistic and ontological problems concerning the foundations of analysis. Moreover, these are problems which can no longer be ignored, especially in view of the evolution of non-standard analysis. But, unfortunately, the interested reader would do far better to turn to Robinson's recent book on the subject, and pay special attention to the second, third, and last chapters therein. "On a Fregean Dogma" by Fred Sommers gives a rather curious non-quantificational algorithm for the monadic fragment of syllogistic. This Sommers does in the interest of "a conservative effort to restore categorical statements to predicative status." Despite the heat and the occasional interesting remarks which the discussion generated, one is inclined to ask, "So what?" The sequence of three papers by Mostowski, Bernays, and Körner is best considered as a group, since each of these is concerned with the philosophical significance of recent results in set theory and logic. Students of the philosophy of mathematics would do well to read this part of the book very carefully, although one wishes that the authors would elaborate a bit on their specific philosophical views. Finally, there is Georg Kreisel's difficult and amazing paper, "Informal Rigor and Completeness Proofs," in which is presented a mathematical treatment of the problem of selecting the primitive rules and concepts of mathematical systems. Kreisel's ideas are refreshing, unorthodox, dubious, and a genuine contribution to the philosophy of mathematics. In sum, this book is a mixed bag, uneven in the quality of its contents, but worth reading.—H. P. K. (shrink)