In this volume, the sixth in Blackwell's Great Debates in Philosophy series, Smart and Haldane discuss the case for and against religious belief. The debate is unusual in beginning with the negative side. After a short jointly authored introduction, there is a fairly extended presentation of the atheist position by Smart. Haldane then offers an equally extended defense of theism. The authors respond to one another in the same order, and the book concludes with a brief co-authored treatment (...) of antirealism, which both reject. The discussion is broad-ranging, in part reflecting the size of the topic. It addresses the existence of God and the problem of evil, along with related issues having to do with God's nature and his involvement with the world: necessary being, eternity versus sempiternity, the relation between divine sovereignty and human freedom, and the possibility of miracles. But there is also discussion of subjects having to do with revealed religion, such as the reliability of scripture, and the roles of faith and reason in the life of the believer. The fact that the book commences with the case for atheism also contributes to its scope, since without a specific version of theism on which to focus, Smart has to aim broadly. The result is that topics that might otherwise have been ignored—moral arguments, and Pascal's wager, to cite two—are at least broached, though not pursued. (shrink)

This review is mainly expository. At one place, Following a suggestion of carnap's, It is suggested that advances in brain physiology might enable us to revive the notion of conventional truth.

A reprint of the first edition together with three new chapters and an enlarged index. The new chapters include some previously published material and discuss Aristotle's modal logic of propositions, Lukasiewicz' new system of modal logic, and Aristotle's modal syllogistic. The author relates his interpretation of Aristotle's modal logic to the philosophical issues raised by modern modal logics. -- J. J. C.

In his discussion note ‘J. J. C. Smart, Materialism and Occam's Razor’ Peter Glassen argues that it was inconsistent of me both to assert that realism is true and that Occam's razor is a reason for the materialist thesis. Glassen says that Occam's razor ‘ is not a physical thing, state or process at all ’. A little further down on the same page he uses the phrase ‘material or physical thing, state, or process’. It is possible, therefore, that (...) Glassen regards the distinction between ‘material’ and ‘physical’ as unimportant in the present context. I think however that one way of replying to Glassen turns on this distinction. (shrink)

The title of this paper is in many ways a bad one, but it does have the advantage of familiarity, and so indicates a well-known group of questions. The questions which philosophers who have talked about “Reason and Conduct” have really been discussing and which they help us to answer have been these: “What are the various ways in which the words “reasonable,” ‘wise,’ ‘foolish,’ etc., are used?” “In what senses may actions and choices be called ‘reasonable,’ and are these (...) senses of ‘reasonable’ connected in any way, and if so in what way, with the senses in which beliefs and inferences may be called ‘reasonable’?” In other words our questions are, in a broad sense of the word, logical questions, not empirical ones. It is misleading to say, therefore, as philosophers commonly do, that we are discussing the relationship between Reason and Conduct, or that we are going into the question of whether Reason can or cannot be practical. Reason is the faculty of acting reasonably. If under “acting reasonably” we include only “inferring properly,” then Reason can only be logical. If under “acting reasonably” we also include making correct inductions and concocting good theories then Reason can also be scientific. If under “acting reasonably” we include “acting morally” or “doing one's duty,” then Reason can be practical. The dispute about whether Reason can be practical is not merely verbal but trivial, and only appears not to be trivial when we hypostatize this faculty Reason and suppose it to be a thing. It then looks as though our dispute is an empirical one about what this thing Reason can do. (shrink)

This article indicates some ways in which the fantasy of the brain in the vat has been used in thought experiments to discuss important philosophical problems. The first has to do with scepticism about the external world. The second has to do with Hilary Putnam’s arguments for the indeterminacy of reference and his rejection of metaphysical realism. The third issue to which the brain in the vat is relevant has to do with the difference between broad and narrow content of (...) beliefs and Putnam’s challenging assertion that reference is not ‘in the head’. Though there are brief suggestions for dealing with these problems and saving metaphysical realism, the main purpose is to indicate the relevance of the fantasy of the brain in the vat to discussion of these issues. (shrink)

It is a pleasure for me to give this opening address to the Royal Institute of Philosophy Conference on ‘Explanation’ for two reasons. The first is that it is succeeded by exciting symposia and other papers concerned with various special aspects of the topic of explanation. The second is that the conference is being held in my old alma mater, the University of Glasgow, where I did my first degree. Especially due to C. A. Campbell and George Brown there was (...) in the Logic Department a big emphasis on absolute idealism, especially F. H. Bradley. My inclinations were to oppose this line of thought and to espouse the empiricism and realism of Russell, Broad and the like. Empiricism was represented in the department by D. R. Cousin, a modest man who published relatively little, but who was of quite extraordinary philosophical acumen and lucidity, and by Miss M. J. Levett, whose translation of Plato's Theaetetus formed an important part of the philosophy syllabus. (shrink)

The relation between categories and sentence frames as presented in ryle's "the concept of mind" is discussed. smart states, "it is important to note that the fact that two expressions 'a' and 'b' "will" go into the same blank in a sentence frame does "not" prove that they are of the same category." (staff).

It is a pleasure for me to give this opening address to the Royal Institute of Philosophy Conference on ‘Explanation’ for two reasons. The first is that it is succeeded by exciting symposia and other papers concerned with various special aspects of the topic of explanation. The second is that the conference is being held in my old alma mater, the University of Glasgow, where I did my first degree. Especially due to C. A. Campbell and George Brown there was (...) in the Logic Department a big emphasis on absolute idealism, especially F. H. Bradley. My inclinations were to oppose this line of thought and to espouse the empiricism and realism of Russell, Broad and the like. Empiricism was represented in the department by D. R. Cousin, a modest man who published relatively little, but who was of quite extraordinary philosophical acumen and lucidity, and by Miss M. J. Levett, whose translation of Plato's Theaetetus formed an important part of the philosophy syllabus. (shrink)

Originally published in 1984, deals with meta-ethics - that is the semantics and pragmatics of ethical language. This book eschews the notions of meaning and analyticity on which meta-ethics normally depends. It discusses questions of free will and responsibility and the relations between ethics on the one hand and science and metaphysics on the other. The author regards ethics as concerned with deciding what to do and with persuading others - not with exploring a supposed realm of ethical fact.

This essay defends a view which is near enough to Putnam's characterization of metaphysical realism for it to be called by the same name. Indeterminacy of reference is conceded, in the sense that there may be multiple reference relations, but it is denied that this implied belief in unknowable noumena. It is enough for metaphysical realism as conceived here, that there be at least one reference relation. The essay also argues against defining truth epistemically. Even a Peircean ideal theory might (...) be false, in a contextual sense of might' stronger than that of the logically possible. (shrink)

The paper begins by considering David Armstrong's beautiful paper 'The Headless Woman Illusion and the Defence of Materialism', which conjectures how we get the illusion that there are non-physical qualia. There are discussions of other metaphysical illusions, that there is a passage of time, that we have libertarian free will, and that consciousness is ineffable (which last also relates to Armstrong), and of their possible explanations. Moral: avoid appeal to so called intuition or phenomenology.

The central classical liberal insight is that private property appears both to protect personal liberty and to promote general productivity. By way of philosophically clarifying this insight, Escape from Leviathan (EfL) posits the extreme classical liberal, or libertarian, Compatibility Thesis: there is no long-term, systemic, practical conflict among economic rationality, interpersonal liberty, human welfare, and private-property anarchy (i.e., four plausible and relevant theories of these that are presupposed, or entailed, by libertarianism and consonant social science). The review (Liberty, November (...) 2002) holds that this extreme version is probably false and suggests that perhaps even EfL’s author would agree. He (still) does not, although he remains open to argument. But what anyone happens to believe at any particular moment is a piece of fleeting biography that is irrelevant to the truth of the thesis or the soundness of the arguments in EfL. (shrink)

This article is mainly concerned to summarise a fairly well articulated position on the philosophy of science which may be extracted from scattered passages in quine's "word and object." (1) there is no sharp line between philosophy and science, Or between science and mathematics, Or between science and common sense. (2) abstract mathematical entities are theoretical posits just as electrons are. (3) epistemology is a branch of biology. (4) quine's earlier instrumentalism has given way to a scientific realism. (5) quine's (...) philosophy of space-Time is briefly discussed. (6) an extensional language is adequate for science. (shrink)

This paper is partly to get rid of some irritation which I have felt at the quite common tendency of philosophers to elucidate ‘is red’ in terms of ‘looks red’. For a relatively recent example see, for example, Frank Jackson and Robert Pargetter, ‘An Objectivist′s Guide to Subjectivism about Colour’. However rather than try to make a long list of references, I would rather say ‘No names, no pack drill’. I have even been disturbed to find the use of the (...) words ‘looks red’ that I am opposing ascribed to me by Keith Campbell in his useful article ‘David Armstrong and Realism about Colour’. I am not saying that such talk is necessarily wrong. Talk of ‘looks red’ may be a way of harmlessly referring to the behavioural discriminations with respect to colour of a human percipient. Where it is dangerous, at least to those of us who wish to argue for a broadly physicalist account of the mind, is that it may have concealed overtones of reference to epiphenomenal and irreducibly psychic properties of experiences. Moreover even if it does not do so it may be fence sitting on this issue and liable to misinterpretation. (shrink)

The editors of the Journal of Applied Philosophy allowed Alan Haworth to reply to my short review of his Anti-Libertarianism. The editors would not allow me to respond to Haworth. Thanks to the openness of internet publication and the Libertarian Alliance website, this can now be rectified and Haworth's reply can no longer escape a public critical response.

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

This paper is partly to get rid of some irritation which I have felt at the quite common tendency of philosophers to elucidate (for example) ‘is red’ in terms of ‘looks red’. For a relatively recent example see, for example, Frank Jackson and Robert Pargetter, ‘An Objectivist′s Guide to Subjectivism about Colour’. However rather than try to make a long list of references, I would rather say ‘No names, no pack drill’. I have even been disturbed to find the use (...) of the words ‘looks red’ that I am opposing ascribed to me by Keith Campbell in his useful article ‘David Armstrong and Realism about Colour’. I am not saying that such talk is necessarily wrong. Talk of ‘looks red’ may be a way of harmlessly referring to the behavioural discriminations with respect to colour of a human percipient. Where it is dangerous, at least to those of us who wish to argue for a broadly physicalist account of the mind, is that it may have concealed overtones of reference to epiphenomenal and irreducibly psychic properties of experiences. Moreover even if it does not do so it may be fence sitting on this issue and liable to misinterpretation. (shrink)