In a recent paper, Breckenridge and Magidor argue for an interesting and counterintuitive account of instantial reasoning. According to this account, in arguments such as one beginning with 'There is some x such that x is mortal. Let O be such an x. ...', the 'O' refers to a particular object, although we cannot know which. I give and defend a simple counterexample involving the notion of an unreferred-to object.

According to Lowe’s Four-Category Ontology, the general nature of the entities belonging to the four fundamental categories is determined by the basic formal ontological relations (instantiation and characterization) that they bear to other entities. I argue that, in closer analysis, instead of one formal relation of characterization, this category system introduces two, one connecting particulars and another universals. With regard to the characterization relation connecting particulars, it remains an open issue whether it would need further analysis. By contrast, the status (...) of instantiation as an internal relation is comparatively clear. Nevertheless, because of holding by virtue of the essences of particulars, the holding of instantiation between universals and particulars rules out the possibility of kind change and entails that particulars are essentially rigidly dependent on universals. Finally, Lowe’s analysis of necessary exemplification gives us some reasons to suspect that some property universals need not have any instances in order to exist. (shrink)

It is argued that instantiation, i.e. the relation between particular objects and properties (conceived as universals or tropes) is indeed an ontologically robust relation. The relation of instantiation is required to explain the difference between a state of affairs of, for example, a being F, and the mereological fusion [ a + F]. If instantiation is a true relation, then Bradley’s Regress ensues. It is argued, nevertheless, that the regress cannot be taken as a reason to reject the existence of (...) instantiation or to reject the existence of properties as entities numerically different from particular objects to which the properties should be related. All the nominalist alternatives suffer from similar regresses. Bradley’s Regress should, therefore, be addressed head-on. After dismissing all the applicable ways in which an infinite regress may be deemed vicious, it is argued that Bradley’s Regress is — in a sense — harmless. (shrink)

Argumentation Frameworks provide a fruitful basis for exploring issues of defeasible reasoning. Their power largely derives from the abstract nature of the arguments within the framework, where arguments are atomic nodes in an undifferentiated relation of attack. This abstraction conceals different senses of argument, namely a single-step reason to a claim, a series of reasoning steps to a single claim, and reasoning steps for and against a claim. Concrete instantiations encounter difficulties and complexities as a result of (...) conflating these senses. To distinguish them, we provide an approach to instantiating AFs in which the nodes are restricted to literals and rules, encoding the underlying theory directly. Arguments in these senses emerge from this framework as distinctive structures of nodes and paths. As a consequence of the approach, we reduce the effort of computing argumentation extensions, which is in contrast to other approaches. Our framework retains the theoretical and computational bene.. (shrink)

This chapter argues that epistemic uses of the imagination are a sui generis form of reasoning. The argument proceeds in two steps. First, there are imaginings which instantiate the epistemic structure of reasoning. Second, reasoning with imagination is not reducible to reasoning with doxastic states. Thus, the epistemic role of the imagination is that it is a distinctive way of reasoning out what follows from our prior evidence. This view has a number of important implications (...) for the epistemology of the imagination. For one thing, it clarifies the epistemic role of widely invoked “constraints” on the imagination. For another, it highlights important and underappreciated disanalogies between how perceptual experiences and imaginings justify beliefs. Ultimately, the view that we can reason with imagination offers an illuminating and theoretically fruitful framework through which to understand the epistemic structure of the imagination. (shrink)

Judgments about the validity of at least some elementary inferential patterns (say modus ponens) are a priori if anything is. Yet a number of empirical conditions must in each case be satisfied in order for a particular inference to instantiate this or that inferential pattern. We may on occasion be entitled to presuppose that such conditions are satisfied (and the entitlement may even be a priori), yet only experience could tell us that such was indeed the case. Current discussion about (...) a perceived incompatibility between content externalism and first-person authority exemplifies how damaging the neglect of such empirical presuppositions of correct reasoning can be. An externalistic view of mental content is ostensibly incompatible with the assumption that a rational subject should be able to avoid inconsistency no matter what the state of her empirical knowledge may be. That fact, however, needs not be taken (as it often is) as a reductio of externalism: alternatively, we may reject that assumption, adding to the agenda of a philosophical investigation of rationality an examination of the vicissitudes of logical luck. I offer an illustration and defense of that alternative. (shrink)

Discovery proceeds in stages of construction, evaluation, and revision. Each of these stages is constrained by what is known or conjectured about what is being discovered. A new characterization of mechanism aids in specifying what is to be discovered when a mechanism is sought. Guidance in discovering mechanisms may be provided by the reasoning strategies of schema instantiation, modular subassembly, and forward/backward chaining. Examples are found in mechanisms in molecular biology, biochemistry, immunology, and evolutionary biology.

Discovery proceeds in stages of construction, evaluation, and revision. Each of these stages is constrained by what is known or conjectured about what is being discovered. A new characterization of mechanism aids in specifying what is to be discovered when a mechanism is sought. Guidance in discovering mechanisms may be provided by the reasoning strategies of schema instantiation, modular subassembly, and forward/backward chaining. Examples are found in mechanisms in molecular biology, biochemistry, immunology, and evolutionary biology.

Reasoning with the maximally consistent subsets of the premises is a well-known approach for handling contradictory information. In this paper we consider several variations of this kind of reasoning, for each one we introduce two complementary computational methods that are based on logical argumentation theory. The difference between the two approaches is in their ways of making consequences: one approach is of a declarative nature and is related to Dung-style semantics for abstract argumentation, while the other approach has (...) a more proof-theoretical flavor, extending Gentzen-style sequent calculi. The outcome of this work is a new perspective on reasoning with MCS, which shows a strong link between the latter and argumentation systems, and which can be generalized to some related formalisms. As a by-product of this we obtain soundness and completeness results for the dynamic proof systems with respect to several of Dung’s semantics. In a broader context, we believe that this work helps to better understand and evaluate the role of logic-based instantiations of argumentation frameworks. (shrink)

In his “Are Properties, Particular, Universal, or Neither?” Javier Cumpa argues that science not metaphysics explains how properties are instantiated. I accept this conclusion provided physics can be stated using rather few primitive predicates. In addition, he uses his scientific theory of instantiation to argue for Neutralism, his thesis that the “tie” between properties and their instances implies neither that properties are particular nor that they are universals. Neutralism, I claim, is a thesis that realist about universals have independent reason (...) to accept and their opponents have reason to reject. So, neutralism is not neutral on the topic of whether properties are universals. Nor is Cumpa’s Theory of Instantiation as naturalistic as he claims. I argue that although compatible with Ontological Naturalism, his theory provides a precedent for the non-naturalistic emergence of mental properties. Finally, I argue that because his theory requires a simple physics it presupposes a more rationalist epistemology than that of Methodological Naturalism. (shrink)

In this paper we describe an approach to practical reasoning, reasoning about what it is best for a particular agent to do in a given situation, based on presumptive justifications of action through the instantiation of an argument scheme, which is then subject to examination through a series of critical questions. We identify three particular aspects of practical reasoning which distinguish it from theoretical reasoning. We next provide an argument scheme and an associated set of critical (...) questions which is able to capture these features. In order that both the argument scheme and the critical questions can be given precise interpretations we use the semantic structure of an Action-Based Alternating Transition System as the basis for their definition. We then work through a detailed example to show how this approach to practical reasoning can be applied to a problem solving situation, and briefly describe some other previous applications of the general approach. In a second example we relate our account to the social laws paradigm for co-ordinating multi-agent systems. The contribution of the paper is to provide firm foundations for an approach to practical reasoning based on presumptive argument in terms of a well-known model for representing the effects of actions of a group of agents. (shrink)

By a reasoned change in logic I mean a change in the logic with which you make inferences that is based on your evidence. An argument sourced in recently published material Kripke lectured on in the 1970s, and dubbed the Adoption Problem by Birman (then Padró) in her 2015 dissertation, challenges the possibility of reasoned changes in logic. I explain why evidentialists should be alarmed by this challenge, and then I go on to dispel it. The Adoption Problem rests on (...) a failure to distinguish between logical principles such as Universal Instantiation and Modus Ponens which might or might not govern your inferences with superficially similar laws which must govern your cognitive architecture. (shrink)

Comparing the three-form reasoning of new Hetu-vidya with Western logic, scholars have put forward four perspectives. Combining their strengths and shortcomings, and the examples of Hetu-vidya reasoning, we can conclude that the three-form reasoning should have four forms: (1) the affirmative expression of formal implication; (2) the modus ponens of hypothetical reasoning concerning sufficient conditions after universal instantiation; (3) the negative expression of a formal implication; and (4) the modus tollens of hypothetical reasoning concerning sufficient (...) conditions after universal instantiation. (shrink)

The paper provides an OWL ontology for legal cases with an instantiation of the legal case Popov v. Hayashi. The ontology makes explicit the conceptual knowledge of the legal case domain, supports reasoning about the domain, and can be used to annotate the text of cases, which in turn can be used to populate the ontology. A populated ontology is a case base which can be used for information retrieval, information extraction, and case based reasoning. The ontology contains (...) not only elements for indexing the case (e.g. the parties, jurisdiction, and date), but as well elements used to reason to a decision such as argument schemes and the components input to the schemes. We use the Protégé ontology editor and knowledge acquisition system, current guidelines for ontology development, and tools for visual and linguistic presentation of the ontology. (shrink)

An analysis of phaedo 96c-606c seeks to demonstrate that when forms are cited as either "safe" or "clever" aitiai they are not meant to function as either final or efficient causes, But as logico-Metaphysical essences which have no causal efficacy whatever, But which do have definite (and far-Reaching) implications for the causal order of the physical universe, For it is assumed that a causal statement, Such as "fire causes heat" will be true if, And only if, The asserted physical bond (...) between fire and heat instantiates the eternal and logically necessary relation of entailment between the instantiated forms, Fire, Heat. (shrink)

I address a type of circularity threat that arises for the view that we employ general basic logical principles in deductive reasoning. This type of threat has been used to argue that whatever knowing such principles is, it cannot be a fully cognitive or propositional state, otherwise deductive reasoning would not be possible. I look at two versions of the circularity threat and answer them in a way that both challenges the view that we need to apply general (...) logical principles in deductive reasoning and defuses the threat to a cognitivist account of knowing basic logical principles. (shrink)

Exclusionary defeat is Joseph Raz’s proposal for understanding the more complex, layered structure of practical reasoning. Exclusionary reasons are widely appealed to in legal theory and consistently arise in many other areas of philosophy. They have also been subject to a variety of challenges. I propose a new account of exclusionary reasons based on their justificatory role, rejecting Raz’s motivational account and especially contrasting exclusion with undercutting defeat. I explain the appeal and coherence of exclusionary reasons by appeal to (...) commonsense value pluralism and the intermediate space of public policies, social roles, and organizations. We often want our choices to have a certain character or instantiate a certain value and in order to do so, that choice can only be based on a restricted set of reasons. Exclusion explains how pro tanto practical reasons can be disqualified from counting towards a choice of a particular kind without being outweighed or undercut. (shrink)

Derek Parfit, Joseph Raz, and T. M. S canlon, among others, all hold that reasons for action are provided by facts about those actions. They also hold that the fact that an action would promote or achieve the object of an agent's desire is not one of the relevant facts, and does not provide a reason. Rather, the facts that provide reasons are typically facts about valuable states of affairs that the action is likely to bring about, or valuable properties (...) that the action itself will instantiate. For this reason it is appropriate to call Parfit, Raz, and Scanlon "value-based" theorists about reasons for action. In contrast to value-based theorists, there is a strong current of contemporary theorizing, starting with Bernard Williams, that can be called "desire-based." Desire-based theorists argue that practical reasons should be understood in terms of the desires of the agents who are said to have those reasons. (shrink)

Diagrams figure prominently in human reasoning, especially in science. Cognitive science research has provided important insights into the inferences afforded by diagrams and revealed differences in the reasoning made possible by physically instantiated diagrams and merely imagined ones. In scientific practice, diagrams figures prominently both in the way scientists reason about data and in how they conceptualize explanatory mechanisms. To identify patterns in data, scientists often graph it. While some graph formats, such as line graphs, are used widely, (...) scientists often develop specialized formats designed to reveal specific types of patterns and not infrequently employ multiple formats to present the same data, a practice illustrated with graph formats developed in circadian biology. Cognitive scientists have revealed the spatial reasoning and iterative search processes scientists deploy in understanding graphs. In developing explanations, scientists commonly diagram mechanisms they take to be responsible for a phenomenon, a practice again illustrated with diagrams of circadian mechanisms. Cognitive science research has revealed how reasoners mentally animate such diagrams to understand how a mechanism generates a phenomenon. (shrink)

Molecular biologists use different kinds of reasoning strategies for different tasks, such as hypothesis formation, experimental design, and anomaly resolution. More specifically, the reasoning strategies discussed in this paper may be characterized as (1) abstraction-instantiation, in which an abstract skeletal model is instantiated to produce an experimental system; (2) the systematic scan, in which alternative hypotheses are systematically generated; and (3) modular anomaly resolution, in which components of a model are stated explicitly and methodically changed to generate alternative (...) changes to resolve an anomaly. This work grew out of close observation over a period of six months of an actively functioning molecular genetics laboratory. (shrink)

In this paper, we demonstrate (1) how harnessing stochasticity can be the basis of creative agency; (2) that such harnessing can resolve the apparent conflict between reductionist (micro-level) accounts of behaviour and behaviour as the outcome of rational and value-driven (macro-level) decisions; (3) how neurophysiological processes can instantiate such behaviour; (4) The processes involved depend on three features of living organisms: (a) they are necessarily open systems; (b) micro-level systems therefore nest within higher-level systems; (c) causal interactions must occur across (...) all the boundaries between the levels of organization. The higher levels constrain the dynamics of lower levels. The experimental evidence and theoretical arguments are shown to be consistent with previous research on the neuronal mechanisms of conscious choice, and with the interconnected multi-level processes by which organisms harness stochasticity, whether conscious or unconscious. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAnte rem structuralists claim that mathematical objects are places in ante rem structural universals. They also hold that the places in these structural universals instantiate themselves. This paper is an investigation of this self-instantiation thesis. I begin by pointing out that this thesis is of central importance: unless the places of a mathematical structure, such as the places of the natural number structure, themselves instantiate the structure, they cannot have any arithmetical properties. But if places do not have arithmetical properties, (...) then they cannot be the natural numbers. The self-instantiation thesis turns out to be crucial for the identification of mathematical objects with places in structures. Unfortunately, we have no reason to believe that the self-instantiation thesis is true. (shrink)

Shastri & Ajjanagadde argue convincingly that both structured connectionist networks and parallel dynamic inferencing are necessary for reflexive reasoning - a kind of inferencing and reasoning that occurs rapidly, spontaneously, and without conscious effort, and which seems necessary for everyday tasks such as natural language understanding. As S&A describe, reflexive reasoning requires a solution to thedynamic binding problem, that is, how to encode systematic and abstract knowledge and instantiate it in specific situations to draw appropriate inferences. Although (...) symbolic artificial intelligence systems trivially solve the dynamic binding problem using computers' registers and pointers, it has remained a difficult problem for connectionist systems. S&A's temporal synchrony solution to the dynamic binding problem using synchronous firing of argument units and the entities that are bound to them illustrates one way in which connectionist networks can do thisusing a constrained but important class of long-term knowledge rules. Their structured connectionist solution allows dynamic inferencing to proceed in parallel and therefore has a number of advantages for reflexive reasoning over most other connectionist and symbolic systems. (shrink)

In this paper we apply a general account of practical reasoning to arguing about legal cases. In particular, we provide a reconstruction of the reasoning of the majority and dissenting opinions for a particular well-known case from property law. This is done through the use of Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agents to replicate the contrasting views involved in the actual decision. This reconstruction suggests that the reasoning involved can be separated into three distinct levels: factual and normative levels and (...) a level connecting the two, with conclusions at one level forming premises at the next. We begin by summarising our general approach, which uses instantiations of an argumentation scheme to provide presumptive justifications for actions, and critical questions to identify arguments which attack these justifications. These arguments and attacks are organised into argumentation frameworks to identify the status of individual arguments. We then discuss the levels of reasoning that occur in this reconstruction and the properties and significance of each of these levels. We illustrate the different levels with short examples and also include a discussion of the role of precedents within these levels of reasoning. (shrink)

Commentators such as Kemp Smith (1941), Mendelbaum (1974), and Bricke (1980) have taken the distinctions of reason to pose either a counterexample to or a limitation of scope on the Separability Principle. This has been convincingly addressed by various accounts such as Garrett (1997), Hoffman (2011), and Baxter (2011). However, I argue in this paper that there are two notions of ‘distinction of reason’, one between particular instantiations (token distinctions of reason) and one between general ideas (type distinctions of reason). (...) Discussion of the distinctions of reason in the secondary literature has without fail focused on token distinctions of reason, but I will argue that type distinctions of reason prove problematic for Hume’s Separability Principle. I find a way around this problem that is consonant with Hume’s account of general ideas, but which can hardly be said to be an account which he explicitly or even implicitly endorsed. (shrink)

I discuss here the pragmatic problem in the philosophy of mathematics, that is, the applicability of mathematics, particularly in empirical science, in its many variants. My point of depart is that all sciences are formal, descriptions of formal-structural properties instantiated in their domain of interest regardless of their material specificity. It is, then, possible and methodologically justified as far as science is concerned to substitute scientific domains proper by whatever domains —mathematical domains in particular— whose formal structures bear relevant formal (...) similarities with them. I also discuss the consequences to the ontology of mathematics and empirical science of this structuralist approach. (shrink)

This paper is a preliminary exploration of the connections between the statistical style of reasoning and the research practices of statistical mechanics in the early period of the long quantum revolution. It suggests that before 1925 the instantiations of the statistical style in physics went through two phases. The first phase consisted of the formulation of the Maxwell‐Boltzmann statistics on the basis of the population‐gas analogy. The second phase was characterized by the generalization of the Maxwell‐Boltzmann statistics through analogies (...) between ideal gas molecules and other microphysical entities, analogies that shaped and were shaped by the rise of quantum theory. Einstein's invention of the Bose‐Einstein statistics started a third phase and created the conditions of possibility for a new classification of microphysical entities according to their different statistics. (shrink)

This paper presents a methodology to design and implement programs intended to decide cases, described as sets of factors, according to a theory of a particular domain based on a set of precedent cases relating to that domain. We useDialectical Frameworks, a recent development in AI knowledge representation, as the central feature of our design method. ADFs will play a role akin to that played by Entity–Relationship models in the design of database systems. First, we explain how the factor hierarchy (...) of the well-known legal reasoning system CATO can be used to instantiate an ADF for the domain of US Trade Secrets. This is intended to demonstrate the suitability of ADFs for expressing the design of legal cased based systems. The method is then applied to two other legal domains often used in the literature of AI and Law. In each domain, the design is provided by the domain analyst expressing the cases in terms of factors organised into an ADF from which an executable program can be implemented in a straightforward way by taking advantage of the closeness of the acceptance conditions of the ADF to components of an executable program. We evaluate the ease of implementation, the performance and efficacy of the resulting program, ease of refinement of the program and the transparency of the reasoning. This evaluation suggests ways in which factor based systems, which are limited by taking as their starting point the representation of cases as sets of factors and so abstracting away the particular facts, can be extended to address open issues in AI and Law by incorporating the case facts to improve the decision, and by considering justification and reasoning using portion of precedents. (shrink)

This article demonstrates that typical restrictions which are imposed in dialogical logic in order to recover first-order logical consequence from a fragment of natural language argumentation are also forthcoming from preference profiles of boundedly rational players, provided that these players instantiate a specific player type and compute partial strategies. We present two structural rules, which are formulated similarly to closure rules for tableaux proofs that restrict players' strategies to a mapping between games in extensive forms and proof trees. Both rules (...) are motivated from players' preferences and limitations; they can therefore be viewed as being player-self-imposable. First-order logical consequence is thus shown to result from playing a specific type of argumentation game. The alignment of such games with the normative model of the Pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation is positively evaluated. But explicit rules to guarantee that the argumentation game instantiates first-order logical consequence have now become gratuitous, since their normative content arises directly from players' preferences and limitations. A similar naturalization for non-classical logics is discussed. (shrink)

We note the development of the widely employed but loosely defined construct of critical thinking from its earliest instantiations as a measure of individual ability to its current status, marked by efforts to better connect the construct to the socially-situated thinking demands of real life. Inquiry and argument are identified as key dimensions in a process-based account of critical thinking. Argument is identified as a social practice, rather than a strictly individual competency. Yet, new empirical evidence is presented documenting a (...) role for individual reasoning competencies in supporting the effectiveness of argumentive discourse. A successful curriculum is described for employing extended engagement in dialogic argumentation as a pathway to development of individual argumentive skill. (shrink)

Aloysius Martinich - Aspects of Reason - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.2 273-274 Book Review Aspects of Reason Paul Grice. Aspects of Reason. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xxxviii + 136. Cloth, $29.95. H. P. Grice made it clear in some of his best works that he was a friend of reason. In "Logic and Conversation," he suggested that it was plausible that the general principles regulating conversation are instantiations (...) of principles of reason. His friendship with reason is central to Aspects of Reason, a revision of the John Locke Lectures given at Harvard. Unfortunately, not far into reading Aspects of Reason, Wittgenstein's quip, "A.. (shrink)

Here is a surprisingly neglected question in contemporary epistemology: what is it for an agent to believe that p in response to a normative reason for them to believe that p? On one style of answer, believing for the normative reason that q factors into believing that p in the light of the apparent reason that q, where one can be in that kind of state even if q is false, in conjunction with further independent conditions such as q’s being (...) a normative reason to believe that p. The primary objective of this paper is to demonstrate that that style of answer cannot be right, because we must conceive of believing for a normative reason as constitutively involving a kind of rationality-involving relation that can be instantiated at all only if there is a known fact on the scene, which the agent treats as a normative reason. A secondary objective, achieved along the way, is to demonstrate that in their Prime Time Errol Lord and Kurt Sylvan do not succeed in undermining the factoring picture in general, only a simple-minded version of it. (shrink)

Total views imply what Derek Parfit has called ‘the repugnant conclusion’. There are several strategies aimed at debunking the intuition that this implication is repugnant. In particular, it goes away when we consider the principle of unrestricted instantiation, according to which any instantiation of the repugnant conclusion must appear repugnant if we should be warranted in relying on it as evidence against total theories. However, there are instantiations of the conclusion where it doesn't seem to be at all repugnant. Hence (...) there is nothing repugnant about the repugnant conclusion as such. The faults with total views have nothing to do with large numbers or with the conclusion as such. It is possible, if you like, to correct these putative faults even if you adopt some total view (different from utilitarianism). (shrink)

This study investigated the cognitive processes involved in inductive reasoning. Sixteen undergraduates solved quadratic function–finding problems and provided concurrent verbal protocols. Three fundamental areas of inductive activity were identified: Data Gathering, Pattern Finding, and Hypothesis Generation. These activities are evident in three different strategies that they used to successfully find functions. In all three strategies, Pattern Finding played a critical role not previously identified in the literature. In the most common strategy, called the Pursuit strategy, participants created new quantities (...) from x and y, detected patterns in these quantities, and expressed these patterns in terms of x. These expressions were then built into full hypotheses. The processes involved in this strategy are instantiated in an ACT‐based model that simulates both successful and unsuccessful performance. The protocols and the model suggest that numerical knowledge is essential to the detection of patterns and, therefore, to higher‐order problem solving. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.2 (2002) 273-274 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Aspects of Reason Paul Grice. Aspects of Reason. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xxxviii + 136. Cloth, $29.95. H. P. Grice made it clear in some of his best works that he was a friend of reason. In "Logic and Conversation," he suggested that it was plausible that the general principles regulating (...) conversation are instantiations of principles of reason. His friendship with reason is central to Aspects of Reason, a revision of the John Locke Lectures given at Harvard. Unfortunately, not far into reading Aspects of Reason, Wittgenstein's quip, "A philosophical problem has the form: 'I don't know my way about'" (Philosophical Investigations, paragraph 123) came to mind and it did not leave me for the rest of the book. (See Grice's own admission on page 4.)As best I can tell, Grice has two main goals. The first is to show that theoretical (or alethic) reasoning and practical reasoning are at bottom the same. Aristotle and Kant held the same thing, as Grice notes more than once. Pace many philosophers who hold that 'ought' does not mean the same thing in the sentences 'She ought to repay the loan' and 'He ought to be home by this time,' Grice holds that it does. That is, the practical 'ought' and the alethic 'ought' have the same sense or senses. While the thesis is clear enough, Grice's path to proving it is not sufficiently clear. He claims that the same general sense of 'rational acceptability' is involved in each sentence. This claim is not informative because the idea of acceptability is no clearer than the claim roughly that 'ought' has the same sense in both its alethic and practical uses. (The editor Richard Warner recognizes this, and tries to shore up Grice's view; see xvi-xvii.)The second of Grice's main goals is to prove that modals in both alethic and practical sentences are conditional. In effect, sentences that say something ought to be the case or ought to be done are conditioned on some premises from which the sentence is or may be logically derived. (Nonetheless, he thinks some sentences with modals are a priori and underived.)There are too many promissory and subjunctive gestures like this: "I suspect that such a reply could be constructed, but I do not have it at my fingertips (or tongue-tip), so I shall not try to produce it." And too many prepositional phrases, under the shared command of abstract nouns and verbs in the passive voice, march single file through the pages, e.g.: "a brief consideration of what modifications might be required or convenient for the employment of mode-markers in the representation of the content of thought (or acceptance)" (70). Some of the few substantive results seem to me to be prolix: Let us suppose it to be a fundamental psychological law that, ceteris paribus, for a creature x (of a sufficiently developed kind), no matter what A and B are, if x wills A and judges that if A, A only as a result of B, then x wills B. This I take to be a proper representation of "he who wills the end, wills the indispensable means"; and in calling it a fundamental law I mean that it is the law, or one of the laws, from which 'willing'... (94-5) and so on.A large part of the problem, I think, is that Grice does not pay much attention to the ordinary uses in which 'reason' or some cognate might be used nor to the ordinary circumstances [End Page 273] in which people are reasoning even if none of them uses the word 'reason' or its cognates. His brief excursion into uses of 'reason' are dominated by such stilted expressions as 'The fact that p was reason for thinking that q,' 'That p was reason to think that q," and 'He had reason to think that p but he seemed unaware of the fact' (39).The editor Richard... (shrink)

Holyoak and Cheng 's account of Wason's selection task was evaluated by testing participants' recognition memory for the rule. To accommodate the finding that participants' selections are systematically influenced by manipulating their perspective on the rule to be tested, Holyoak and Cheng put forward a development of Pragmatic Reasoning Schema theory, according to which the rule being tested is mapped onto different schematic rules depending on the perspective taken. The instantiated schema then becomes the basis for reasoning, and (...) the different schemas encourage the selection of different cases. We hypothesised that if participants interpret the rule by instantiating a particular schema, then they should falsely recognise a sentence corresponding to the instantiated schema a short time after performing the task. An experimental test provided limited support for this hypothesis. (shrink)

What role does and should religion play in the legal sphere of a modern liberal democracy? Does religion threaten to create divisions that would undermine the stability of the constitutional order? Or is religious disagreement itself a force that works to create consensus on some of the core commitments of constitutionalism--liberty of conscience, toleration, limited government, and the rule of law? This essay explores these questions from the perspectives of contemporary political philosophy and constitutional theory. The thesis of the essay (...) is that pluralism--the diversity of religious and secular conceptions of the good--can and should work as a force for constitutional consensus and that such a consensus is best realized through commitment to an ideal of public legal reason instantiated by the practice of legal formalism. The case for these claims is made in six parts. After the introduction, Part II, The Fact of Pluralism in the Context of Contemporary Religious Division, explores the idea of religious division in light of an important notion in political philosophy--the idea that John Rawls calls the fact of reasonable pluralism. Part III, Public Legal Reason, argues that the fact of pluralism has important normative consequences for the foundations of normative legal theory and argues for an ideal of public legal reason. Part IV, Legal Formalism, contends that this idea is best realized in constitutional practice through a formalist approach to constitutional interpretation--one that deliberately eschews direct reliance on religious and secular comprehensive conceptions of the good. Part V, Feasibility and Positive Theory, discusses the question whether this ideal of public legal reason and corresponding conception of constitutional formalism are realistic, given the constraints imposed by democratic politics under contemporary conditions. Finally, Part VI, Religious Division Revisited: From Pluralism to Formalism, brings the discussion to a close. (shrink)

This paper gives a new, proof-theoretic explanation of partial-order reasoning about time in a nonmonotonic theory of action. The explanation relies on the technique of lifting ground proof systems to compute results using variables and unification. The ground theory uses argumentation in modal logic for sound and complete reasoning about specifications whose semantics follows Gelfond and Lifschitz’s language. The proof theory of modal logic A represents inertia by rules that can be instantiated by sequences of time steps or (...) events. Lifting such rules introduces string variables and associates each proof with a set of string equations; these equations are equivalent to a set of partial-order tree-constraints that can be solved efficiently. The defeasible occlusion of inertia likewise imposes partial-order constraints in the lifted system. By deriving an auxiliary partial order representation of action from the underlying logic, not the input formulas or proofs found, this paper strengthens the connection between practical planners and formal theories of action. Moreover, the general correctness of the theory of action justifies partial-order representations not only for forward reasoning from a completely specified start state, but also for explanatory reasoning and for reasoning by cases. (shrink)

Kant’s analysis of the concept of natural purpose in the Critique of judgment captured several features of organisms that he argued warranted making them the objects of a special field of study, in need of a special regulative teleological principle. By showing that organisms have to be conceived as self-organizing wholes, epigenetically built according to the idea of a whole that we must presuppose, Kant accounted for three features of organisms conflated in the biological sciences of the period: adaptation, functionality (...) and conservation of forms..Kant’s unitary concept of natural purpose was subsequently split in two directions: first by Cuvier’s comparative anatomy, that would draw on the idea of adaptative functions as a regulative principle for understanding in reconstituting and classifying organisms; and then by Goethe’s and Geoffroy’s morphology, a science of the general transformations of living forms. However, such general transformations in nature, objects of an alleged ‘archaeology of nature’, were thought impossible by Kant in the §80 of the Critique of judgment. Goethe made this ‘adventure of reason’ possible by changing the sense of ‘explanation’: scientific explanation was shifted from the investigation of the mechanical processes of generation of individual organisms to the unveiling of some ideal transformations of types instantiated by those organisms. (shrink)

In an effort to restrict seed piracy in the global agricultural market, Monsanto intends to implement some form of genetic use restriction technology. Regarding such intentions, many activist groups adamantly contend that Monsanto will be acting immorally if GURTs, specifically Terminator Technology, are implemented in the global agricultural market. They argue that the potential implementation of TT is immoral because it threatens to infringe upon the rights of resource-poor farmers by denying them the ability to save the seed derived from (...) their harvests. While there may be ways that the implementation of TT can be construed as wrong, I narrowly argue that Monsanto will not be wrongfully infringing upon the basic rights of resource-poor farmers if it actually implements TT. Moreover, as long as Monsanto takes the appropriate measures to minimize the possible negative effects that TT may have on resource-poor farmers, and allows these farmers to make an autonomous choice to use seed that contains this technology, Monsanto's possible implementation of TT cannot be accurately considered to instantiate an immoral violation of basic rights. (shrink)

Kant’s analysis of the concept of natural purpose in the Critique of judgment captured several features of organisms that he argued warranted making them the objects of a special field of study, in need of a special regulative teleological principle. By showing that organisms have to be conceived as self-organizing wholes, epigenetically built according to the idea of a whole that we must presuppose, Kant accounted for three features of organisms conflated in the biological sciences of the period: adaptation, functionality (...) and conservation of forms..Kant’s unitary concept of natural purpose was subsequently split in two directions: first by Cuvier’s comparative anatomy, that would draw on the idea of adaptative functions as a regulative principle for understanding in reconstituting and classifying organisms; and then by Goethe’s and Geoffroy’s morphology, a science of the general transformations of living forms. However, such general transformations in nature, objects of an alleged ‘archaeology of nature’, were thought impossible by Kant in the §80 of the Critique of judgment. Goethe made this ‘adventure of reason’ possible by changing the sense of ‘explanation’: scientific explanation was shifted from the investigation of the mechanical processes of generation of individual organisms to the unveiling of some ideal transformations of types instantiated by those organisms. (shrink)

A key component of the susceptibility to cognitive biases is the ability to monitor for conflict between intuitively cued “heuristic” answers and logical principles. While there is evidence that pe...

This thesis is a critique of Jaakko Hintikka’s reconstruction of Kantian intuition in logical and mathematical reasoning. I argue that Hintikka’s reconstruction of Kantian intuition in particular and his reconstruction of Kant's philosophy of mathematics in general fails to be successful in two ways: First, the logical formula which contains an instantiated term (henceforth, instantial term) that is introduced by the rule of existential instantiation in the ecthesis part of a proof of an argument is not even a (...) proper singular proposition whose relation to its object is supposed to be immediate. It is not a proper singular proposition because its truth conditions are general, i.e., it makes a general statement about a class of individuals of the sort instantiated- a statement whose analysis is based on quantifiers. Second, I show that certain proofs in mathematics- those in the form of reductio ad absurdum- are not captured by Hintikka’s reconstruction of Kant’s philosophy of mathematics either. (shrink)

This book addresses a seemingly marginal and as yet sparsely discussed policy problem that turns out to open a window into longstanding debates at the very heart of normative ethics, metaethics, and practical rationality more broadly: Should we contact the last uncontacted peoples? Over the course of this book, I will explore grounds for three responses to this question: yes, no, and rejecting the question. First, I aim to show that even though the case of uncontacted people stirs up some (...) hard problems for theories of justice and well-being, they still warrant a presumption in favour of intervention: It seems that we would have similar duties towards uncontacted people as we are regularly taken to have towards contacted people similarly placed – if being contacted would be good for them. And it looks as though it would be, based on considerations of welfare more broadly and reasons of autonomy in particular. Still, intuitively there seems to be a strong presumption against intervention – or so widely accepted policies of non-intervention would suggest. I go on to explore two options for why intervention may be wrong overall: It may turn out to be harmful or impermissibly risky upon closer inspection of contingent circumstances; or it may be that extinguishing uncontacted cultures is bad independently of the interests of those living in them. Two further options challenge the viability of the question: I consider whether the case of uncontacted peoples undermines the very bases of our moral judgments, perhaps instantiating what Bernard Williams sought to capture with the idea of a relativism of distance. Lastly, I address whether the question of one’s self-interest in this matter challenges practical rationality more fundamentally by being a transformative choice or one between incomparable options. (shrink)