In this paper I begin with a recent challenge to the Semantic Approach and identify an underlying assumption, namely that identity conditions for theories should be provided. Drawing on previous work, I suggest that this demand should be resisted and that the Semantic Approach should be seen as a philosophical device that we may use to represent certain features of scientific practice. Focussing on the partial structures variant of that approach, I then consider a further challenge that arises (...) from a concern with the role of idealisations in that practice. I argue that the partial structures approach is capable of meeting this challenge and I conclude with some broader observations about the role of such formal accounts within the philosophy of science. (shrink)

In this paper I begin with a recent challenge to the Semantic Approach and identify an underlying assumption, namely that identity conditions for theories should be provided. Drawing on previous work, I suggest that this demand should be resisted and that the Semantic Approach should be seen as a philosophical device that we may use to represent certain features of scientific practice. Focussing on the partial structures variant of that approach, I then consider a further challenge that arises (...) from a concern with the role of idealisations in that practice. I argue that the partial structures approach is capable of meeting this challenge and I conclude with some broader observations about the role of such formal accounts within the philosophy of science. (shrink)

In this essay I shall argue that the crucial assumptions of Kripke's argument, i.e. the collapse of the appearance/reality distinction in the case of phenomenal states and the idea of a qualitatively identical epistemic situation, imply an objective principle of identity for mental-state types. This principle, I shall argue, rather than being at odds with physicalism, is actually compatible with both the type-identity theory of the mind and Kripke's semantics and metaphysics. Finally, I shall sketch a version of (...) the type-identity theory. (shrink)

According to Myles Brand, ‘[t]he key to advocating a particularist account of events -or any account of events - is to provide adequate identity conditions’. He thinks that the function of an identity condition is ‘to specify the nature of’ events.To state an identity condition for events is to provide a way to complete the formula: The mere fact that a proposed completion of is true does not imply that it is an informative identity condition (...) for events or that it plays any role in specifying the nature of events. (shrink)

We present diverse evidence for the claim of Pullum and Rawlins (2007) that expressives behave differently from descriptives in constructions that enforce a particular kind of semantic identity between elements. Our data are drawn from a wide variety of languages and construction types, and they point uniformly to a basic linguistic distinction between descriptive content and expressive content (Kaplan 1999; Potts 2007).

Goodsell-Thea_Mental-files-and-their-identity-conditions.

Among theories of personal identity over time the simple view has not been popular among philosophers, but it nevertheless remains the default view among non philosophers. It may be construed either as the view that nothing grounds a claim of personal identity over time, or that something quite simple (a soul perhaps) is the ground. If the former construal is accepted, a conspicuous difficulty is that the condition of causal dependence between person-stages is absent. But this leaves such (...) a view open to an objection from the failure to provide a condition of individuation. If, on the other hand something like a soul is said to ground personal identity over time, such an account turns out to be more suited to a kind of continuity view. (shrink)

In this article I discuss various possible ways of understanding the character of and relations between legal systems in the European Union. In particular, I consider whether there is an EU legal system distinct from and in addition to the national legal systems of EU Member States, or whether it is better to conceive of EU law merely as an aspect of Member States’ legal systems, or indeed whether we should think of there being but a single EU legal system (...) of which Member States’ “national legal systems” are in some sense sub-systems.Resumen:Este artículo discute varios modos posibles de comprender el carácter de los sistemas jurídicos de la Unión Europea y sus relaciones. En particular, se plantea la cuestión de si existe un sistema jurídico en la Unión Europea adicional y distinto del sistema jurídico nacional de los Estados miembros; o si es mejor concebir el derecho de la Unión Europea simplemente como un aspecto de los sistemas jurídicos de los Estados miembros; o bien, si es que deberíamos pensar que no hay sino sólo un sistema jurídico en la Unión Europea con respecto del cual los “sistemas jurídicos nacionales” de los Estados miembros son en cierta forma subsistemas. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In ‘Properties, Propositions, and Conditionals’ Field [2021] advances further on our understanding of the logic and meaning of naive theories – theories that maintain, in the face of paradox, basic assumptions about properties and propositions. His work follows in a tradition going back over 40 years now, of using Kripke fixed-point model constructions to show how naive schemas can be (Post) consistent, as long as one embeds in a non-classical logic. A main issue in all this research is the (...) question of finding a suitable conditional for the naive schemas, an implication connective that is well-behaved enough to be useful but weak enough to maintain coherence when there are paradoxes in the surrounding aether. Field takes several cues from the exemplary work of Ross Brady. Brady's work is predominantly concerned with models for naive theories in relevant logic. Field's considered view is that ‘relevant conditionals are just the wrong tool for naive theories’ [ibid.: 140]. In this note, I reply that a relevant conditional is an indispensable tool for at least one very important job: giving identity conditions for properties. (shrink)

Addressing many topics in epistemology and metaphysics, this treatise sets out a new theory of the unity of objects, and discusses personal identity, the metaphysics of possible worlds, the continuity in space time, and the nature of philosophical theorizing.

For readers engaged in intellectual struggle, ethical thinking, and trying to figure out how to live a purposeful, fulfilling life, here is a critical and accessible approach to ethics. Moral dilemmas challenge us to think through sticky situations and lead us to look for moral grounding. Following Cicero and other ancient philosophers, the author views ethics in terms of the question of who and what sort of person one ought to be, without relying on religion or any other prescriptions.

This book sets out a new theory of the unity of objects. The author introduces the reader to the central problems faced by philosophical accounts of identity, problems which can, to a large extent, be solved using the theory developed in the book. In his consideration of the vexed issue of personal identity, the author argues that in our everyday thinking about persons we merge radically different kinds of notions. He suggests that our assessment of sameness of person (...) is not founded on any determinate concept of person. Many central topics in epistemology and metaphysics are addressed in the course of the book and the author provides an original examination of each: the nature of physical objects, the metaphysics of possible worlds, the meaning of continuity in space and time and the nature of philosophical theorizing itself. The book is written in non-technical language and so will be of interest to the non-specialist philosopher. (shrink)

Pluralists believe that there are cases of distinct but spatio-temporally coinciding things. The statue goes, the piece of clay remains: differing persistence conditions, different things. Yet while both are with us, they are obviously in the same place. The argument rests on two assumptions: that statues have their shape essentially and that pieces of clay do not. Only if we make both does the conclusion follow. Here I suggest that while both assumptions are plausible on their face, each may (...) be questioned. Given this, we are not forced to accept their conjunction and can thus avoid the counter-intuitive conclusion it entails. (shrink)

What makes us the same person across time? The different solutions to this problem known as personal identity can be divided into two camps: A numerical and a practical approach. While the former asks for the conditions of identity based on the question “what is a person?,” the latter is concerned with what we identify with in everyday life as essential in order to form a narrative of one’s life as a whole based on the question “who (...) am I?” However, by emphasizing the cognitive and/or experiential capacities as the sole condition for self or personhood, both approaches fail to offer an adequate account of birth and death. The one being born is not yet someone with such cognitive capacities and the one who dies is unable to experience his or her own death. By invoking conceptual frameworks of Kierkegaard and Romano, I argue that birth and death must be considered both as events and conditions constitutive of personal identity rather than a set of derivative problems arising from an already established definition of self or person. (shrink)

The self as the identification of the self with itself is a product of the dynamic transformation of European culture beginning in the Renaissance. The self, or absolute ego, was an outgrowth of the consciously rationalist spirit. However, modernity's Faustian drive was conscious paradoxically without being self conscious of itself or its cultural creations. Modernism deconstructed the values and assumptions of modernity. A casualty was the problematization of the self that had been banished and/or erased by formalism, structuralism and deconstruction. (...) The modernist self erases the absolute ego reconstructing it with a rich, complex, narrative idea of a self‐conscious relational self encompassing memory, repression, autobiography and history. This paper explores the modernist conception of self in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Proust demolishes the absolute ego in favor of the paradoxical self which knows itself only in relation to otherness actualized in persons and culture in the sacred time of existence. (shrink)

Van de Vliert's findings fit nicely with our recent arguments implying that (1) differentiated selfhood is partly motivated by requirements of cultural groups, and (2) free will mainly exists within culture. Some cultural groups promote individual freedom, whereas others constrict it so as to maintain elites' power and privilege. Thus, freedom is, to a great extent, a creation of culture.

Globalization is a natural process. It has a number of advantages & disadvantages, causes many questions and problems, which can hardly sometimes be solved by countries independently. These problems can only be solved by the world community. One of these problems is to maintain the concrete communities identity. Is it possible to keep the unique culture of different ethnos, language, traditions in the globalizing world? Or as some researchers consider, there is a tendency to the formation of the so (...) called super ethnos? In such conditions tolerance takes on special significance as a certain means of activity, as social behavior model, as a norm of behavior for each member of the society. Tolerance as a behavior model on one hand should be worked out by a state legislative body, from the other it should be a norm of behavior for each member of the society. The basis of the tolerant behavior is the principle of mutual understanding.It can be considered to be a moral imperative for the resolution of conflict situations. The relevance & importance of tolerance & creating tolerant relations is a characteristic feature of the democratic personality. (shrink)

When Derek Parfit in Reasons and Persons, examined whether the Non-Identity Problem could be solved with the Impersonal Total Principle, he assumed perfect equality in the future population outcomes under his consideration. His thinking was that this assumption could not distort his reasoning, but would make it more simple and clear. He then reasoned that the best future population outcome, according to the Impersonal Total Principle, would be an enormous population, whose members have lives only barely worth living, as (...) a slight lowering in quality of life, according to the principle, can always be more than compensated for by an increase in the number of future people. He found this result impossible to believe and dubbed it the Repugnant Conclusion, concluding that his attempts had ended in failures and that the Non-Identity Problem continues to undermine our beliefs of our obligations to the future. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of the Impersonal Total Principle in real-world circumstances where the inevitability of inequality is taken into account. What, if anything, will this imply regarding the Repugnant Conclusion, the indirect version of the Non-Identity Problem and our abilities to ground our moral responsibilities to posterity in an ethical theory? (shrink)

This book explores questions concerning personal identity and individual conduct within neoliberal academe. The author suggests that neoliberal academe is normal academe in the new millennium though well aware of its contested nature and destructive capacities. Examining higher education through a number of ideals, such as austerity and transparency, brings readers on a journey into its present as well as its past. If some of these ideals can be identified and critiqued, there is a chance that the foundations of (...) neoliberal academe can be weakened. This book actively pursues pathways out of the neoliberal abyss--and offers that demanding a role for pleasure in higher education may be one of them. (shrink)

Two meanings of "subjective consequentialism" are distinguished: conscious deliberation with the aim of producing maximally-good consequences, versus acting in ways that, given one's evidence set and reasoning capabilities, is subjectively most likely to maximize expected consequences. The latter is opposed to "objective consequentialism," which demands that we act in ways that actually produce the best total consequences. Peter Railton's arguments for a version of objective consequentialism confuse the two subjective forms, and are only effective against the first. After reviewing the (...) arguments of Eric Wiland and Frances Howard-Snyder against objective consequentialism, two of Railton's arguments which might seem to count against the second form of subjective consequentialism are shown to be ineffective. This leaves subjective consequentialism as a viable theory to replace objective consequentialism with. (shrink)

That no member of a natural kind can switch kinds is a consequence of David Wiggins’ view that the identity conditions for such things are given by the natural kind itself. If dog is a natural kind, then dogs must be dogs and one dog cannot ‘turn into’ something else, say, by gradually ‘becoming’ a mass of tissue (as Marjorie Price had held). Were such a transition to involve the persistence of the same thing, then the thing in (...) question would comply with conditions of identity not restricted to dogs. To provide for such transitions James Baillie suggests alternative conditions of identity, based on Andrew Brennan’s notion of ‘survival’ (itself borrowed from Parfit). Survival requires that the earlier thing be ‘structurally similar to’, and ‘play a significant and direct role in the production of’ the later thing (sufficiency is gained if, in addition, they are composed of the same kind of matter). Unlike identity, however, survival is what Wiggins calls a ‘branching’ relation, capable of linking a single thing with two or more equal ‘competitors’ (as apparently happens in cases of brain fission). To provide conditions of identity per se, Baillie follows Parfit, who claimed that our identity is preserved by psychological continuity when there is no branching. Members of natural kinds, such as dogs, are now said to be reidentifiable over time by the relation of non-branching survival. I argue against this on the ground that we can know when this relation obtains only when we are already able to individuate things by a different sort of relation, such as those associated with natural kinds. (shrink)

Identity: The Necessity of a Modern Idea is the first comprehensive history of the concept that answers the question, "who, or what, am I?" Gerald Izenberg contends that our most important identities, while historically conditioned, are rooted in permanent categories of human existence, such as sexuality, sociality, and labor.

_Purpose._ This article aims at outlining the consider Ukrainian identity in the context of European collective action through the prism of value orientations/approaches. _Theoretical basis._ The following methods were used in order to cover the problem as objectively as possible: historical, analytical, comparative, socio-geographical, behavioral, and dialectical. The use of these methods contributed to tracing the peculiarities of identity and collective action in the dynamics of the historical process and social development. _Originality._ The role of identity in (...) collective action formation is considered. It was established that identity determines the socio-species structure and projects social development. After all, identification for a person in the formation process is a basic need that determines a person’s belonging, not identity. During the formation of "I" there is a combination of "I1" + "I2" + "Other" = "WE". This process is complex and long-term, but it is precisely the process that gives you the opportunity to clearly understand your "I" and know yourself. It was found that identity as a social phenomenon, which is related to the formation of the "I", is determined by certain circumstances, which can be conditionally divided into objective and subjective. After analyzing the scientific literature, a generalization was made that identity is not a new phenomenon, but it has certain features at each stage of social development. This became most noticeable in the conditions of globalization, when countries that are actually different perceive the "Other", unite around certain problems, and then this union forms a system of mutual relations. It is thanks to this approach that alliances, multicultural associations, etc. are formed, and an example of this is the heterogeneous European identity. Special attention is drawn to the role of values, which are the landmarks in the process of identity and the formation of collective action. Based on political, social, economic, historical processes and ontological features, it was established that identity is a dynamic process, since values during a person’s life, the existence of the state, etc. are variables. This is confirmed by the value orientation and various socio-political processes aimed at the formation of Homo in countries that have the status of "between". _Conclusions._ The article illustrates and justifies the existence of several forms of identity according to which the types of identity are formed. The fact proves that identity is not a constant process and varies due to multiple factors: social, political, economic, and religious as well as due to formations – regional, local, civilizational, etc. As practice shows, the problem of identity mostly has situational nature and arises due to the need for unification. The socio-historical process manifests the significance of the values in the formation of a collective European heterogeneous identity. These processes are influenced by many factors: geographical, historical, mythological, etc. (shrink)

I distinguish what I call ?minimal narrative? from narrative of the kind that might disclose a person's identity in biography or autobiography. The latter exists in what I call ?the realm of meaning?; a realm in which, in ways I try to make clear, form and content cannot be separated. The realm of meaning is also the realm in which we develop an understanding of what it means to lead a human life lucidly responsive to the defining facts of (...) the human condition and, interdependently with that, our sense of what it means to wrong someone. To show to what degree assumptions about the realm of meaning set the stage for our understanding of what it is to wrong someone, of the nature of biography and autobiography and of what it is to learn morally from someone's example, I detail the conceptual structure of a certain kind of racist perception. The racist's distinction between ?us? and ?them?, is essentially the distinction between lives that are lived in the realm of meaning and lives that are not. Much of moral philosophy, I argue, takes as it starting point a perception of human life that is little different from the racist's perception of the lives of those whom he regards as less than fully human. (shrink)

Forty years ago, Vaughn Ball demonstrated that the then received notion of conditional relevance served no useful purpose, as it would only come into effect if the probability of an element were 0.0. But, if the probability of an element were 0.0, a directed verdict would be in order and so once again conditional relevancy was doing no work. I extended that analysis to include the relationship between proffers of evidence and facts of consequence to demonstrate that the work that (...) conditional relevancy was supposedly doing was isomorphic to that done by relevancy in all significant ways, and yet the Federal Rules of Evidence provide different standards for the two situations to determine admissibility. I thus proposed an amendment to FRE 104(b) to provide for the same standard to be applied to ‘relevancy’ and ‘conditional relevancy’. In a recent article, Matthew Kotzen appears to subject this work to intense scrutiny and criticism, yet at the same time reaches, so far as I can tell, identical conclusions. This raises the question, which I examine, whether this is an example of cross-disciplinary difficulties in communication. (shrink)

Twenty-two leading Latin American philosophers are featured in this complete anthology on the human condition, values, and the search for identity. Bibliography.