Online research in philosophy

We contend that if efficiency and reliability are important factors in neural information processing then distributed, not localist, representations are “evolution's best bet.” We note that distributed codes are the most efficient method for representing information, and that this efficiency minimizes metabolic costs, providing adaptive advantage to an organism.

Venkataramanaiah, V. Introduction.--Narla, V. R. Russell and his rejection of religion.--Mehta, G. L. The sceptical crusader.--Dalvi, G. R. Russell, the man.--Venkatarao, V. The nuclear war and the future of man.--Innaiah, N. Bertrand Russell's philosophy.--Subbarayudu, P. Rationality vis-a-vis faith.--Nageswar Rao, B. Russell and nuclear warfare.--Rajagopala Rao, M. Rebel in Russell.--Shankar, G. N. J. The man who revolutionised modern thought.--Maharajasri. Russell, the social scientist in the four-dimensional universe.--The life of Bertrand Russell.--Acknowledgements.--A list of principal works (...) of Bertrand Russell.--Russell's conception of good society in a democratic socialist order.--Objects. (shrink)

" The supreme principle, both in politics and in private life, should be to promote all that is creative, and so to diminish the impulses and desires that center round possession." This book, originally entitled Why Men Fight, is generally seen as the fullest expression of Bertrand Russell's political philosophy. Russell argues that after the experience of the Great War the individualistic approach of traditional liberalism had reached its limits. Political theory must be based on the motivated forces (...) of creativity and impulse rather than on competition. The ideas expressed in Principles of Social Reconstruction have greatly contributed to Russell's fame as a social critic and anti-war activist. The introduction by Richard Rempel locates them in the context of Russell's other writings and show that neither his ideas nor his language have lost their force and topicality over the years. (shrink)

We are naturally social beings; and given with our natural commitment to social existence is a natural commitment to that whole web or structure of human personal and moral attitudes and feelings, and judgments of which I spoke. Our natural disposition to such attitudes and judgments is naturally secured against arguments suggesting they are in principle unwarranted or unjustified ….

Niche construction is a potentially important concept for the human behavioural sciences but we question how it differs from models of gene-culture coevolution and whether it can be developed in the detailed ways that will be necessary if it is going to make a significant contribution to the human behavioural sciences.

Is it harder to acquire knowledge about things that really matter to us than it is to acquire knowledge about things we don't much care about? Jason Stanley 2005 argues that whether or not the relational predicate 'knows that' holds between an agent and a proposition can depend on the practical interests of the agent: the more it matters to a person whether p is the case, the more justification is required before she counts as (...) knowing that p. The evidence for Stanley's thesis includes a number of intuitive judgments about examples. In this paper we provide parallel examples for which Stanley's thesis requires unwelcome knowledge-attributions, and argue that this is possible because his thesis conflicts with familiar and plausible principles about knowledge. (shrink)

Contextualists often argue from examples where it seems true to say in one context that a person knows something but not true to say that in another context where skeptical hypotheses have been introduced. The skeptical hypotheses can be moderate, simply mentioning what might be the case or raising questions about what a person is certain of, or radical, where scenarios about demon worlds, brains in vats, The Matrix, etc., are introduced. I argue that the introduction of these skeptical hypotheses (...) leads people to fallaciously infer that it is no longer true to say that the relevant person knows. I believe that that is a better explanation of the so-called intuition that the person does not know than the contextualists who claim that raising these skeptical hypotheses changes the standards that determine when it is true to say S knows that P. At the end I raise the possibility that contextualists might defend their view on pragmatic rather than skeptical grounds by arguing that the standards of evidence rise when more is at stake in a practical sense. (shrink)

Human beings differ in ways of understanding, interpreting, describing or sharing experience. On the basis of experience we construct our own conceptual systems (beliefs and values) that are neither consistent nor monolithic. "Alternative conceptual systems exist, whether one likes it or not. They are not likely to go away, since they arise from a fundamental human capacity to conceptualise experience...A refusal to recognise conceptual relativism where it exists does have ethical consequences. It leads directly to conceptual elitism and imperialism - (...) to the assumption that our behaviour is rational and that of other people is not, and to attempts to impose our way of thinking on others" (Lakoff, 1987; p.337). (shrink)

Between 1903 and 1918 Russell made a number of attempts to understand the unity of the proposition, but his attempts all foundered on his failure clearly to distinguish between different senses in which the relation R might be said to relate a and b in the proposition aRb: he failed to distinguish between the relation as truth-maker and the relation as unifier, and consequently committed himself again and again to the unacceptable consequence that only true propositions are genuinely unified. (...) There is an anticipation of this confusion in the writings of the fourteenth-century philosopher Richard Brinkley. (shrink)

This essay is a brief response to Durwood Foster and Richard Gelwick’s essays analyzing the 1963 encounter of Paul Tillich and Michael Polanyi and to Robert Russell’s assessment of the importantce of Polanyi’s ideas for recent theology and science discussions.

This is an outstanding anthology. It contains extended reflections on Russell’s idea that our notion of causation is a relic of stone-age metaphysics, which fails to fit contemporary physics and thus deserves elimination (‘On the Notion of Cause’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 13, 1913, pp. 1–26). It will be of interest to anyone interested in causation or the physical image of the world, and to anyone interested in reconciling the manifest and scientific images.

Now in a third edition, Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a highly acclaimed, topically organized collection that covers five major areas of philosophy--theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, freedom and determinism, and moral philosophy. Editor Louis P. Pojman enhances the text's topical organization by arranging the selections into a pro/con format to help students better understand opposing arguments. He also includes accessible introductions to each chapter, subsection, and individual reading, a unique feature for an (...) anthology of this depth. While the book focuses on a compelling sampling of classical material--including selections from Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant--it also incorporates some of philosophy's best twentieth-century and contemporary work, featuring articles by Bertrand Russell, Richard Taylor, John Searle, Thomas Nagel, and others. This third edition contains an expanded glossary, more extensive section introductions, and twelve new selections: Karl Popper: "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject" Richard Rorty: "Dismantling Truth: Solidarity Versus Objectivity" Daniel Dennett: "Postmodernism and Truth" Bruce Russell: "The Problem of Evil: Too Much Suffering" David Chalmers: "Against Materialism: Can Consciousness Be Reductively Explained?" Baron Paul Henri d'Holbach: "A Defense of Determinism" Michael Levin: "A Compatibilist Defense of Moral Responsibility" Plato: Socratic Morality: "Crito" Herodotus: "Custom Is King" J. L. Mackie: "The Subjectivity of Values" Louis P. Pojman: "A Critique of Mackie's Theory of Moral Subjectivism" Thomas Nagel: "Moral Luck". (shrink)

Is evil evidence against the existence of God? Even if God and evil are compatible, it remains hotly contested whether evil renders belief in God unreasonable. The Evidential Argument from Evil presents five classic statements on this issue by eminent philosophers and theologians and places them in dialogue with eleven original essays reflecting new thinking by these and other scholars. The volume focuses on two versions of the argument. The first affirms that there is no reason for God to permit (...) either certain specific horrors or the variety and profusion of undeserved suffering. The second asserts that pleasure and pain, given their biological role, are better explained by hypotheses other than theism. -/- Contributors include William P. Alston, Paul Draper, Richard M. Gale, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Alvin Plantinga, William L. Rowe, Bruce Russell, Eleonore Stump, Richard G. Swinburne, Peter van Inwagen, and Stephen John Wykstra. (shrink)

After a brief history of Brentano's thesis of intentionality, it is argued that intentionality presents a serious problem for materialism. First, it is shown that, if no general materialist analysis (or reduction) of intentionality is possible, then intentional phenomena would have in common at least one nonphysical property, namely, their intentionality. A general analysis of intentionality is then suggested. Finally, it is argued that any satisfactory general analysis of intentionality must share with this analysis a feature which entails the existence (...) of a nonphysical "level of organization". (shrink)

G.H. von Wright, G.E. Moore's and Wittgenstein's successor, and John Wisdom's predecessor as a Professor of Philosophy in Cambridge, wrote in 1993: «The history of the øanalytical! movement has not yet been written in full. With its increased diversification, it becomes pertinent to try to identify its most essential features and distinguish them from later additions which are alien to its origins.» In the same year A.J. Ayer's successor as a Wykeham Professor of Logic in Oxford, M. Dummett noted: «I (...) hope that such a history will be written: it would be fascinating.» The task of this book is to fulfill these hopes. (shrink)

Traditional descriptivism and Kripkean causalism are standardly interpreted as rival theories on a single topic. I argue that there is no such shared topic, i.e. that there is no question that they can be interpreted as giving rival answers to. The only way to make sense of the commitment to epistemic transparency that characterizes traditional descriptivism is to interpret Russell and Frege as proposing rival accounts of how to characterize a subject’s beliefs about what names refer to. My argument (...) relies on a development of the distinction between speaker’s reference and semantic reference. (shrink)

In 1913 Wittgenstein raised an objection to Russell’s multiple relation theory of judgment that eventually led Russell to abandon his theory. As he put it in the Tractatus, the objection was that “the correct explanation of the form of the proposition, ‘A makes the judgement p’, must show that it is impossible for a judgement to be a piece of nonsense. (Russell’s theory does not satisfy this requirement,” (5.5422). This objection has been widely interpreted to concern type (...) restrictions on the constituents of judgment. I argue that this interpretation is mistaken and that Wittgenstein’s objection is in fact a form of the problem of the unity of the proposition. (shrink)

In their correspondence in 1902 and 1903, after discussing the Russell paradox, Russell and Frege discussed the paradox of propositions considered informally in Appendix B of Russell’s Principles of Mathematics. It seems that the proposition, p, stating the logical product of the class w, namely, the class of all propositions stating the logical product of a class they are not in, is in w if and only if it is not. Frege believed that this paradox was avoided (...) within his philosophy due to his distinction between sense (Sinn) and reference (Bedeutung). However, I show that while the paradox as Russell formulates it is ill-formed with Frege’s extant logical system, if Frege’s system is expanded to contain the commitments of his philosophy of language, an analogue of this paradox is formulable. This and other concerns in Fregean intensional logic are discussed, and it is discovered that Frege’s logical system, even without its naive class theory embodied in its infamous Basic Law V, leads to inconsistencies when the theory of sense and reference is axiomatized therein. (shrink)

According to Michael Friedman, Ernst Cassirer’s “outstanding contribution [to Neo-Kantianism] was to articulate, for the first time, a clear and coherent conception of formal logic within the context of the Marburg School” (Friedman 2000, p. 30). In his paper “Kant und die moderne Mathematik” (1907), Cassirer argued not only that the new relational logic of Frege1 and Russell was a major breakthrough with profound philosophical implications, but also that the logicist thesis itself was a “fact” of modern mathematics. Cassirer (...) summarizes his evaluation of Russell’s work: Here logic and mathematics have been fused into a true, henceforth indissoluble unity; and from this inner connection there arises for each .. (shrink)

§1. Introduction. Although Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica (hereafter, PM ), published almost precisely a century ago, is widely heralded as a watershed moment in the history of mathematical logic, in many ways it is still not well understood. Complaints abound to the effect that the presentation is imprecise and obscure, especially with regard to the precise details of the ramified theory of types, and the philosophical explanation and motivation underlying it, all of which was primarily Russell’s responsibility. (...) This has had a large negative impact in particular on the assessment of the socalled “no class” theory of classes endorsed in PM. According to that theory, apparent reference to classes is to be eliminated, contextually, by means of higher-order “propositional function”—variables and quantifiers. This could only be seen as a move in the right direction if “propositional functions,” and/or higher-order quantification generally, were less metaphysically problematic or obscure than classes themselves. But this is not the case—or so goes the usual criticism. Years ago, Geach (1972, p. 272) called Russell’s notion of a propositional function “hopelessly confused and inconsistent.” Cartwright (2005, p. 915) has recently agreed, adding “attempts to say what exactly a Russellian propositional function is, or is supposed to be, are bound to end in frustration.” Soames (2008) claims that “propositional functions . . . are more taken for granted by Russell than seriously investigated” (p. 217), and uses the obscurity surrounding them as partial justification for ignoring the no class theory in a popular treatment of Russell’s work (Soames, 2003).1 A large part of the usual critique involves charging Russell with confusion, or at least obscurity, with regard to what a propositional function is supposed to be. Often the worry has to do with the use/mention distinction: is a propositional function, or even a proposition. (shrink)

Kripke (1977) presents an argument designed to show that the considerations in Donnellan (1966) concerning attributive and referential uses of (definite) descriptions do not, by themselves, refute Russell’s (1905) unitary theory of description sentences (RTD), which takes (utterances of) them to express purely general, quantificational, propositions. Against Kripke, Marga Reimer (1998) argues that the two uses do indeed reflect a semantic ambiguity (an ambiguity at the level of literal truth conditions). She maintains a Russellian (quantificational) analysis of utterances involving (...) attributively used descriptions but attempts to defend the following two claims about utterances involving referentially used descriptions (referential utterances) (1998, p. 89). (shrink)

On investigating a theorem that Russell used in discussing paradoxes of classes, Graham Priest distills a schema and then extends it to form an Inclosure Schema, which he argues is the common structure underlying both class-theoretical paradoxes (such as that of Russell, Cantor, Burali-Forti) and the paradoxes of ?definability? (offered by Richard, König-Dixon and Berry). This article shows that Russell's theorem is not Priest's schema and questions the application of Priest's Inclosure Schema to the paradoxes of (...) ?definability?.1 1?Special thanks to Francesco Orilia for criticisms of an early draft of this article. (shrink)

In this paper I present two new paradoxes, a definability paradox (related to the paradoxes of Berry, Richard and König), and a paradox about extensions (related to Russell’s paradox). However, unlike the familiar definability paradoxes and Russell’s paradox, these new paradoxes involve no self-reference or circularity.

A central theme in the foundational debates in the early Twentieth century in response to the paradoxes was to invoke the notion of the indefinite extensibility of certain concepts e,g. definability (the Richard paradox) and class (the Zermelo-Russell contradiction). Dummett has recently revived the notion, as the real lesson of the paradoxes and the source of Frege's error in basic law five of the Grundgesetze. The paper traces the historical and conceptual evolution of the concept and critices Dummett's (...) argument that the proper lesson of the paradoxes is that set theory is a theory of indefinitely extensible domains. (shrink)

The article concerns the treatment of the so-called denoting phrases, of the forms ?every A?, ?any A?, ?an A? and ?some A?, in Russell's Principles of Mathematics. An initially attractive interpretation of what Russell's theory was has been proposed by P.T. Geach, in his Reference and Generality (1962). A different interpretation has been proposed by P. Dau (Notre Dame Journal, 1986). The article argues that neither of these is correct, because both credit Russell with a more thought-out (...) theory than he actually had. The conclusion is mainly negative: at this date Russell has no coherent theory of these phrases. An appendix notes that his understanding of the quantifiers in predicate logic is also, at this date, not entirely secure. (shrink)

Abstract Pavel Florensky solves Lewis Carroll’s ‘Barbershop’ paradox to support his reasoning in a previous chapter. Our discussion includes a) the problem (which we also refer to as the p paradox), b) Carroll’s solution, c) Bertrand Russell’s solution, d) Florensky’s solution and then e) a material example proffered by Florensky. Both Russell and Florensky disagree with Carroll’s solution, yet, (ostensibly) unbeknownst to themselves they offer the same solution, which is ‘p implies not-q’. Given Florensky’s material example, the solution (...) seems to tell us something about the logic of belief. We ask whether Florensky’s example has reverse implications for Russell’s solution. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-10 DOI 10.1007/s11406-011-9333-6 Authors Michael Rhodes, Philosophy and Religious Studies (NPD), Chicago, IL, USA Journal Philosophia Online ISSN 1574-9274 Print ISSN 0048-3893. (shrink)

Introduction -- Stout's proto-new-realism -- Situating G.F. Stout -- Stout's doctrine of primary and secondary qualities -- Stout and the Brentano School -- Representative function of presentations -- Sensible space and real space -- Cook Wilson's geometrical counter-example -- Stout's central question -- Ideal constructions -- Ideal constructions in psychology and epistemology -- British new realism : the language of madness -- Stout's criticisms of Alexander -- Alexander's response -- The nature of sensations, images, and other presentations -- What is (...) the metaphysical problem? -- "How can the interpretation which is supplied by the mind be a constituent of the [physical] object?" -- Some general remarks -- British new realism : the language of common-sense -- T.P. Nunn and the new realism -- Nunn and things -- Nunn's postulate -- Russell and Stout on sensible objects -- Russell, sense-data and sensibilia -- The methods of construction -- Russell's constructions and Nunn's postulate -- Constructions, psychology, and the essence of philosophy -- The methods of logical construction -- A mathematical development -- The principle of abstraction. (shrink)

Russell's autobiography.--Descriptive and critical essays on the philosophy of Bertrand Russell.--The philosopher replies.--Bibliography of the writings of Bertrand Russell to 1951, compiled by L. E. Denonn (p. [743]-804).

A intenção deste artigo é primàriamente exegética. Não pretende chegar a conclusães filosóficas substanciais nem fazer uma apreciação crítica. Pretende simplesmente esclarecer a versão de Russell quanto ao atomismo lógico, apresentando a sua teoria do juízo empírico num contexto histórico. A maior parte dos comentários contemporâneos falham neste ponto; contudo, afigura-se impossível compreender perfeitamente a teoria de Russell aeerca do conhecimento, bem como a Teoria das Descrições, como parte integrante daquela teoria, se não for encarada como uma tentativa (...) para evitar as consequencias de certas teorias alternativas do juízo. Pensa o autor que muitas críticas contemporâneas da Teoria das Descrições estão deslocadas, simplesmente por não conseguirem apreender o papel que aquela teoria devia desempenhar na análise russelliana do juízo empírico. A título de exemplo tenta o autor mostrar como as críticas de P. F. Strawson a respeito da Teoria das Descrições, como foram formuladas no seu artigo On Referring, não vêm a propósito (cf. Secção VT). A principal comparação histórica aqui apresentada refere-se à teoria idealista do juízo de F. H. Bradley. Contudo, parece também importante salientar o acordo que existe entre Russell e Bradley quanto a rejeitar como inadequado o tipo de análise do juízo apresentado por Leibniz e, numa primeira etapa da sua carreira, por G. E. Moore. Leibniz e Moore apresentaram, em moldes diversos, aquilo a que podíamos chamar teorias 'essencialmente genéricas' do juízo. Para Leibniz uma proposição é uma conexão analitica de conceitos, para Moore uma proposição é uma conexão sintética de conceitos. Tanto Russell como Bradley afirmam que é impossível formular uma teoria do juízo satisfatória, se concebermos a relação entre uma mente e uma proposição, implicada no juízo, como uma simples conexao de conceitos. O juízo deve ser apresentado como algo que implica experiência imediata pré-conceitual, experiência essa que, embora em si mesma não seja capaz de verdade ou falsidade, está pressuposta na própria possibilidade de qualquer juízo, verdadeiro ou falso, acerca da realidade. Dum modo geral, podíamos dizer que um juízo, cujo conteúdo é conceitual, é em virtude da experiência imediata que 'atinge a realidade' ('reaches right up to reality'). Contudo, embora Russell e Bradley concordem neste ponto, a análise da experiência imediata apresentada pelo primeiro é muito diferente da do segundo. Na medida em que se pode falar duma tese exegética positiva neste artigo, dir-se-ia que a análise russelliana da experiência imediata, contida na sua doutrina do 'conhecimento por experiência directa' dos particulares na sensação, é formulada especificamente (a) para ser compatível com a existência dum universo pluralista de particulares externamente relacionados e (b) para permitir uma versão da teoria de correspondência da verdade. Por outras palavras, a análise russelliana do juízo empírico, implicando necessàriamente um 'conhecimento por experiência directa' dos particulares na sensação, foi formulada especìficamente para evitar as consequências que, tanto Bradley como Russell, viram seeguir-se da análise idealista do juízo. Isto ilustra uma diferença fundamental entre o método filosófico de Russell e o de Bradley. Bradley aceita o monismo, a irrealidade das relações externas, e a teoria de coerência da verdade como consequência da sua teoria inicial do juízo. Russell, por outro lado, pensa que estas consequências se tornaram inaceitáveis perante a prática e as descobertas da ciência empírica; e tenta, por isso, construir uma teoria do juízo compatível com o tipo de metafísica e com a teoria da verdade, que lhe parece serem exigidos pela ciência empírica. (Resumo do Autor. Trad. A. M.). (shrink)

In recent years Russell´s view that there are singular propositions, namely propositions that contain the individuals they are about, has gained followers. As a response to a number of puzzles about attitude ascriptions several Russellians (as I will call those who accept the view that proper names and indexicals only contribute their referents to the propositions expressed by the sentences in which they occur), including David Kaplan and Nathan Salmon, have drawn a distinction between what proposition is believed and (...) how it is believed.1 While it is generally agreed upon among Russellians that this distinction needs to be drawn there is considerable disagreement as to what exactly the distinction amounts to and what role the what and the how should play. The most plausible option seems to be to not assign a semantic value to the cognitive role played by the name or indexical in the sentence assented to. But recently Mark Richard2 has attempted to make the cognitive role affect truth values by building it into the truth conditions of belief reports.3 I will argue that Richard’s attempt fails to satisfy our pretheoretical intuitions about the sharing of beliefs. Furthermore, and more surprisingly, I will argue that Richard’s theory makes it virtually impossible for us to judge whether or not most belief reports are true or false, since doing so would involve what I call RAM probing, which would require viewing elements that are essentially private. (shrink)

Chisholm, R. M. Sentences about believing.--Cornman, J. W. Intentionality and intensionality.--Marras, A. Intentionality and cognitive sentences.--Chisholm, R. M. Notes on the logic of believing.--Luce, D. R., Sleigh, R. C., and Chisholm, R. M. Discussion on "Notes on the logic of believing."--Lycan, W. G. On intentionality and the psychological.--Hempel, C. G. Logical analysis of psychology.--Carnap, R. Logical foundations of the unity of science.--Nagel, T. Physicalism.--Ryle, G. Dispositions.--Sellars, W. Empiricism and the philosophy of mind.--Chisholm, R. M. and Sellars, W. The Chisholm-Sellars correspondence (...) on intentionality.--Aune, B. Thinking.--Bergmann, G. Intentionality.--Sellars, W. Notes on intentionality.--Frege, G. On sense and nominatum.--Russell, B. On denoting.--Carnap, R. The analysis of belief sentences.--Putnam, H. Synonymity, and the analysis of belief sentences.--Quine, W. V. O. Quantifiers and propositional attitudes.--Linsky, L. Substitutivity and descriptions.--Hintikka, J. Semantics for propositional attitudes.--Rosenthal, D. M. and Sellars, W. The Rosenthal-Sellars correspondence on intentionality.--Bibliography (p. 505-523). (shrink)

The period from 1900 to 1935 was particularly fruitful and important for the development of logic and logical metatheory. This survey is organized along eight "itineraries" concentrating on historically and conceptually linked strands in this development. Itinerary I deals with the evolution of conceptions of axiomatics. Itinerary II centers on the logical work of Bertrand Russell. Itinerary III presents the development of set theory from Zermelo onward. Itinerary IV discusses the contributions of the algebra of logic tradition, in particular, (...) Löwenheim and Skolem. Itinerary V surveys the work in logic connected to the Hilbert school, and itinerary V deals specifically with consistency proofs and metamathematics, including the incompleteness theorems. Itinerary VII traces the development of intuitionistic and many-valued logics. Itinerary VIII surveys the development of semantical notions from the early work on axiomatics up to Tarski's work on truth. (shrink)

Natural law theory is enjoying a revival of interest in a variety of scholarly disciplines including law, philosophy, political science, and theology and religious studies. This volume presents twelve original essays by leading natural law theorists and their critics. The contributors discuss natural law theories of morality, law and legal reasoning, politics, and the rule of law. Readers get a clear sense of the wide diversity of viewpoints represented among contemporary theorists, and an opportunity to evaluate the arguments and counterarguments (...) exchanged in the current debates between natural law theorists and their critics. Contributors include Hadley Arkes, Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., John Finnis, Robert P. George, Russell Hittinger, Neil MacCormick, Michael Moore, Jeffrey Stout, Joseph Raz, Jeremy Waldron, Lloyd Weinreb, and Ernest Weinrib. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell is widely considered to be one of the founders of analytic philosophy, epistemology, and philosophy of science. Individuals have usually stressed his early philosophical contributions as seminal in this regards. But Russell also had another side–a naturalistic side–leading him towards a naturalistic epistemology and naturalistic philosophy of science of the type Quine later made famous. My goal is to provide an outline of Russell's naturalistic epistemology and the underlying philosophical motivations for such a move. After (...) briefly presenting Russell's conception of the nature of philosophy, I sketch his theory of philosophical method, which is a version of the method of analysis. This provides the underpinnings for a discussion of his Naturalistic Epistemology, which led him to adopt a version of a behavioristic epistemology. Although Russell vacillated on the question of the adequacy of such an account, it provided a major element in his later philosophical views. I suggest that we must reevaluate our conception of the history of analytic philosophy and, in particular, our understanding of Russell's place in the history of 20th century philosophy. (shrink)

The difference between cause and effect seems obvious and crucial in ordinary life, yet missing from modern physics. Almost a century ago, Bertrand Russell called the law of causality 'a relic of a bygone age'. In this important collection 13 leading scholars revisit Russell's revolutionary conclusion, discussing one of the most significant and puzzling issues in contemporary thought.

1. The Tractatus doctrine of saying and showing In a letter to Russell dated 19.4.1919, written shortly after he had finished the Tractatus, Wittgenstein told Russell that the main contention of the book, to which all else, including the account of logic, is subsidiary, ‘is the theory of what can be expressed (gesagt) by prop[osition]s -- i.e. by language -- (and, which comes to the same, what can be thought) and what cannot be expressed by prop[osition]s, but only (...) shown (gezeigt); which I believe is the cardinal problem of philosophy’ (CL 68). This was emphasized in both preface and conclusion of the book. The preface observes that the whole sense of the book can be summed up in the following words: ‘what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence’ (TLP p.3). The conclusion of the book (TLP 7) simply repeats this. The preceding three remarks, however, are noteworthy. They make three claims. First, ‘There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical’ (TLP 6.522). This reiterates the leitmotif of the book, namely that there are things that cannot, by the very nature of representation, be said. But though they cannot be said, they are shown by features of the relevant system of representation. Secondly, the correct method in philosophy would really be to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. empirical propositions that have nothing to do with philosophy, and then, when someone wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give meaning to certain signs in his propositions (TLP 6.53). This method, of course, is not the method that has been followed throughout the book, which consists almost exclusively of modal assertions concerning what must, can or cannot be thus and so in reality, in language and in the relation between language and reality.. (shrink)

Russell Goodman examines the curious reemergence of pragmatism in a field dominated in the past decades by phenomenology, logic, positivism, and deconstruction. With contributions from major contemporary and classical thinkers such as Cornel West, Richard Rorty, Nancy Fraser, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Ralph Waldo Emerson Russell has gathered an impressive chorus of philosophical voices that reexamine the origins and complexities of neo-pragmatism. The contributors discuss the relationship between pragmatism and literary theory, phenomenology, existentialism, and the work of (...) Ralph Waldo Emerson. They question the meaning of pragmatics, what it is to be practical, and ask provocative questions such as: what is reading? and whether or not democracy is a precondition for the functioning of intelligence. This work places this reemergent and interesting neo-development in its proper context and will provide readers with a strong sense of the movement's foundations, history, and subtlities. (shrink)

The Study of the History of Philosophy as an independent discipline to exhibit and explicate philosophical systems as their originators meant them to be understood is less than one hundred years old. On the other hand, philosophers from Plato and Aristotle through the Middle Ages to Bertrand Russell and Richard Rorty have represented the systems of their predecessors in the light of, and as leading to, their own philosophical positions. It is not surprising then that the study of (...) the long history of the history of philosophy itself discloses a series of often greatly divergent expositions of philosophical systems throughout the ages. The purist conception of the study of the philosophical position of a .. (shrink)

A coherent theory of relations was a critical part of Russell’s metaphysics. In Appearance and Reality Bradley posed a problem that sits squarely in the way of any doctrine of “external” relations. Russell, determined to advance such a doctrine, tried several times to find a way around the paradox and apparently believed he had succeeded by making use of one of his inventions, the theory of logical types.Gilbert Ryle and Alan Donagan have advanced an argument that I read, (...) over the objections of its authors, as a special case of Bradley’s. In this paper I argue that the ad hoc solution suggested by Donagan to the special problem is one that Russell had already indicated a willingness to accept but that the general problem of the paradox remains.What finally prevents Russell from solving the paradox is a combination of his refusal to abandon the claim that relations are constituents of facts and the necessity of distinguishing a relational fact from its converse. Following some hints that Russell left, I do some reconstruction, showing how the theory of types would (and should) have been applied had Russell followed through on his own insights. The result, I suggest, is a truly Russellian theory that escapes Bradley’s paradox. (shrink)

From 1914 on Russell's epistemology was dominated by the attempt to show how we come by our knowledge of the external world. As he gradually became aware of the inadequacies of the "pure empiricist" approach, Russell realized that his program was viable only insofar as certain postulates of inference were allowed. In this paper I trace the development of the structural postulates from Analysis of Matter to Human Knowledge. The basic continuity of Russell's thought is established. Certain (...) confusions implicit in the various formulations of the postulates are brought to light. Finally, it is argued that the viability of Russell's program rests on a larger number of independent postulates than he thought were needed. Some implications of Russell's work for current work in the philosophy of science are briefly sketched. (shrink)

During most of his long philosophical career, Bertrand Russell was a strong moral subjectivist or emotivist who argued that ethics, because it cannot hope to arrive at truth, is not properly a part of either science or philosophy. In several works, however, most notably Philosophy and Politics and Human Society in Ethics and Politics, he attempted to bring his empiricism and his philosophy of science to bear on moral and other axiological questions. In these writings, he appears to seek (...) and to hope for the "imperium" of the title of this article, which contrasts these two positions, drawing on the former to critique the latter. (shrink)

Although numerous aspects of Bertrand Russell's philosophical views have been discussed, his views about the nature of the mind and the place of psychology within modern science have received less attention. In particular, there has been little discussion of what I will call "Russell's flirtation with behaviorism." Although some individuals have mentioned this phase in Russell's philosophical career, they have not adequately situated it within Russell's changing philosophical views, in particular, his naturalistic epistemology. I briefly discuss (...) this naturalistic epistemology and the kind of behaviorism it resulted in. I also briefly compare it to the behaviorism of John Watson, which had a strong influence on Russell. Russell finally abandoned this extreme form of behaviorism because of its denial of mental images, which was crucial to Russell's philosophy of mind and his semantics. I suggest that even though Russell's flirtation with behaviorism came to an end, he continued to be committed to a naturalistic epistemology. If this is so, we need to reassess the views of Russell and their place in twentieth-century thought. (shrink)

A recursive enumerator for a function h is an algorithm f which enumerates for an input x finitely many elements including h(x), f is a k(n)-enumerator if for every input x of length n, h(x) is among the first k(n) elements enumerated by f. If there is a k(n)-enumerator for h then h is called k(n)-enumerable. We also consider enumerators which are only A-recursive for some oracle A. We determine exactly how hard it is to enumerate the Kolmogorov function, which (...) assigns to each string x its Kolmogorov complexity: • For every underlying universal machine U, there is a constant a such that C is k(n)-enumerable only if k(n) ≥ n/a for almost all n. • For any given constant k, the Kolmogorov function is k-enumerable relative to an oracle A if and only if A is at least as hard as the halting problem. • There exists an r.e., Turing-incomplete set A such for every non-decreasing and unbounded recursive function k, the Kolmogorov function is k(n)-enumerable relative to A. The last result is obtained by using a relativizable construction for a nonrecursive set A relative to which the prefix-free Kolmogorov complexity differs only by a constant from the unrelativized prefix-free Kolmogorov complexity. Although every 2-enumerator for C is Turing hard for K, we show that reductions must depend on the specific choice of the 2-enumerator and there is no bound on the quantity of their queries. We show our negative results even for strong 2-enumerators as an oracle where the querying machine for any x gets directly an explicit list of all hypotheses of the enumerator for this input. The limitations are very general and we show them for any recursively bounded function g: • For every Turing reduction M and every non-recursive set B, there is a strong 2-enumerator f for g such that M does not Turing reduce B to f. • For every non-recursive set B, there is a strong 2-enumerator f for g such that B is not wtt-reducible to f. Furthermore, we deal with the resource-bounded case and give characterizations for the class ${\rm S}_{2}^{{\rm P}}$ introduced by Canetti and independently Russell and Sundaram and the classes PSPACE, EXP. • ${\rm S}_{2}^{{\rm P}}$ is the class of all sets A for which there is a polynomially bounded function g such that there is a polynomial time tt-reduction which reduces A to every strong 2-enumerator for g. • PSPACE is the class of all sets A for which there is a polynomially bounded function g such that there is a polynomial time Turing reduction which reduces A to every strong 2-enumerator for g. Interestingly, g can be taken to be the Kolmogorov function for the conditional space bounded Kolmogorov complexity. • EXP is the class of all sets A for which there is a polynomially bounded function g and a machine M which witnesses A ∈ PSPACEf for all strong 2-enumerators f for g. Finally, we show that any strong O(log n)-enumerator for the conditional space bounded Kolmogorov function must be PSPACE-hard if P = NP. (shrink)

Praised for its accessibility and comprehensiveness, Philosophy: The Quest for Truth provides an excellent selection of classical and contemporary readings on nineteen key problems in philosophy. Louis P. Pojman has carefully organized the essays in each section so that they present pro/con dialogues that allow students to compare and contrast the philosophers' positions. Topics covered include the nature of philosophy, the existence of God, immortality, knowledge, the mind-body question, personal identity, free will and determinism, ethics, political philosophy, and the meaning (...) of life. The sixth edition offers selections from Plato, Reni Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, William James, Bertrand Russell, John Hick, John Hospers, and James Rachels--as well as essays by Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Blaise Pascal, Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant, Gilbert Ryle, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alvin Plantinga, and many others. In Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, Sixth Edition, Pojman offers substantial introductions to each of the nineteen philosophical problems. In addition, each of the seventy-six readings is accompanied by an individual introduction with a biographical sketch of the philosopher, study questions, and reflective questions that challenge students to analyze and critique the material. Short bibliographies following each major section and a detailed glossary further enhance the text's pedagogical value. Invaluable for introductory courses in philosophy, this highly acclaimed text inspires and guides students' quest for wisdom. New to the Sixth Edition:: * Six selections: William Lane Craig: The Kalam Cosmological Argument and the Anthropic Principle William Rowe: An Analysis of the Ontological Argument Daniel Dennett: Postmodernism and Truth William James: The Dilemma of Determinism Harry Frankfurt: Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person John Rawls: The Contemporary Liberal Answer * A student companion website -- http://www.oup.com/us/quest -- featuring study and review questions, discussion questions, chapter overviews and summaries, topical links, suggestions for further reading, and PowerPoint lecture aids * More exercises in the excursus on logic. (shrink)

Fish, S. Georgics of the mind: Bacon's philosophy and the experience of his Essays.--Brett, R. L. Thomas Hobbes.--Watt, I. Realism and the novel.--Tuveson, E. Locke and Sterne.--Kampf, L. Gibbon and Hume.--Frye, N. Blake's case against Locke.--Abrams, M. H. Mechanical and organic psychologies of literary invention.--Ryle, G. Jane Austen and the moralists.--Schneewind, J. B. Moral problems and moral philosophy in the Victorian period.--Donagan, A. Victorian philosophical prose: J. S. Mill and F. H. Bradley.--Pitcher, G. Wittgenstein, nonsense, and Lewis Carroll.--Bolgan, A. C. (...) The philosophy of F. H. Bradley and the mind and art of T. S. Eliot: an introduction.--Davie, D. Yeats, Berkeley, and Romanticism.--Ross, M. L. The mythology of friendship: D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, and "The Blind man".--Rosenbaum, S. P. The philosophical realism of Virginia Woolf.--Bibliography (p. 357-360). (shrink)

If everything exists, then it looks, prima facie, as if talking about nothing is equivalent to not talking about anything. However, we appear as talking or thinking about particular nothings, that is, about particular items that are not among the existents. How to explain this phenomenon? One way is to deny that everything exists, and consequently to be ontologically committed to nonexistent “objects”. Another way is to deny that the process of thinking about such nonexistents is a genuine singular thought. (...) The first strategy we may call “the Meinongian tradition” (championed by authors like Alexius Meinong, Ernst Mally, Terence Parsons, Richard Routley, and Ed Zalta), while the second could be dubbed “the de re tradition” (connected to work by Gareth Evans, John McDowell, and Tyler Burge). Finally, the third way to solve the above puzzle, and probably the majority view in contemporary philosophy, is due to Bertrand Russell and W.V.O. Quine, who deny the particularity of the apparent nonexistent object and the singularity of the corresponding thought via the view that any statement about apparently particular nonexistents can be paraphrased into a quantified expression containing no genuinely referring terms. Jody Azzouni’s book is an attempt to argue for and develop a fourth view, based on the hitherto unrecognised notion of an “empty singular thought”, which Azzouni takes to have a place in logical space. Concomitant to developing the view, Azzouni applies it to three typical cases of talk about nonexistents: numbers, hallucinations, and fictions. As the name suggests, empty singular thought is devised as having three essential characteristics: (1) it is genuine thought, no different from any other, (2) it is singular, that is, its content is partly determined by particular non-conceptualised states of affairs, and (3) nevertheless it is genuinely empty, unlike Meinongian thought, that is, its object “does not exist in any sense”, to use Azzouni’s own formulation. Azzouni undertakes some challenging acrobatics when trying to persuade the reader that his view is substantive and it does not end up being the same as any of the previous three views about apparent talk about nonexistents.. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell, in the second of his 1914 Lowell lectures, Our Knowledge of the External World, asserted famously that ‘every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and purification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical’ (Russell 1993, p. 42). He went on to characterize that portion of logic that concerned the study of forms of propositions, or, (...) as he called them, ‘logical forms’. This portion of logic he called ‘philosophical logic’. Russell asserted that ... some kind of knowledge of logical forms, though with most people it is not explicit, is involved in all understanding of discourse. It is the business of philosophical logic to extract this knowledge from its concrete integuments, and to render it explicit and pure. (p. 53) Perhaps no one still endorses quite this grand a view of the role of logic and the investigation of logical form in philosophy. But talk of logical form retains a central role in analytic philosophy. Given its widespread use in philosophy and linguistics, it is rather surprising that the concept of logical form has not received more attention by philosophers than it has. The concern of this paper is to say something about what talk of logical form comes to, in a tradition that stretches back to (and arguably beyond) Russell’s use of that expression. This will not be exactly Russell’s conception. For we do not endorse Russell’s view that propositions are the bearers of logical form, or that appeal to propositions adds anything to our understanding of what talk of logical form comes to. But we will be concerned to provide an account responsive to the interests expressed by Russell in the above quotations, though one clarified of extraneous elements, and expressed precisely. For this purpose, it is important to note that the concern expressed by Russell in the above passages, as the surrounding text makes clear, is a concern not just with logic conceived narrowly as the study of logical terms, but with propositional form more generally, which includes, e.g., such features as those that correspond to the number of argument places in a propositional function, and the categories of objects which propositional.... (shrink)

Some of the most interesting recent work in philosophy of language and metaphysics is focused on questions about propositions, the abstract, truth-bearing contents of sentences and beliefs. The aim of this guide is to give instructors and students a road map for some significant work on propositions since the mid-1990s. This work falls roughly into two areas: challenges to the existence of propositions and theories about the nature and structure of propositions. The former includes both a widely discussed puzzle about (...) propositional designators as well as direct and indirect arguments against the existence of propositions. The latter is dominated by what is currently the central debate about the metaphysics of propositions, i.e. whether they are structured, composite entities or unstructured ontological simples. This issue has eclipsed older debates about whether propositions can be identified with sets of possible worlds or other kinds of sentence intensions. Author Recommends 1. Soames, Scott. 'Direct Reference, Propositional Attitudes, and Semantic Content.' Philosophical Topics 15 (1987): 47–87. Reprinted in Propositions and Attitudes . Eds. N. Salmon and S. Soames. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. 197–239. Essential groundwork for more recent work on propositions. Soames gives a careful and exacting presentation of the case against identifying propositions with sets of possible worlds or other truth-supporting circumstances. Also contains a detailed statement of the Russellian conception of propositions on which propositions are ordered sets of objects, properties and relations. 2. King, Jeffrey. 'Designating Propositions.' The Philosophical Review 111 (2002): 341–71. Sometimes substituting a definite description for a corresponding 'that'-clause can lead to bizarre changes in truth-conditions: compare 'Bill fears that Hillary will be president' with 'Bill fears the proposition that Hillary will be president'. This puzzle about propositional designators threatens the relational analysis of propositional attitude reports, the view that 'believes' expresses a relation to the proposition designated by its 'that'-clause, and thereby poses an indirect threat to the existence of propositions. King's solution posits an ambiguity in verbs like 'fear' that embed both 'that'-clauses and definite descriptions. 3. Jubien, Michael. 'Propositions and the Objects of Thought.' Philosophical Studies 104 (2001): 47–62. A direct attack on the existence of propositions. Jubien deploys an analogue of the problem that Paul Benacerraf raised for set-theoretical reductions of numbers against metaphysical reductions of propositions. Just as numbers can be reduced to sets in many different ways, any reduction of propositions brings with it equally good variants, thus making any such reduction arbitrary and unmotivated. The only alternative is to treat propositions as abstract metaphysical primitives. As Jubien argues, however, abstract primitive entities are incapable of doing what propositions must do, i.e. represent objects and states of affairs on their own, without the input of thinking subjects. The upshot is the propositions cannot be reduced and they cannot be primitive, and so they must not exist. 4. Hanks, Peter. 'How Wittgenstein Defeated Russell's Multiple Relation Theory of Judgment.' Synthese 154 (2007): 121–46. Scepticism about propositions has recently led some philosophers, Jubien included, to resuscitate Russell's multiple relation theory of judgment, the idea that judgment is a many-place relation to objects, properties and relations. This paper explains why Russell himself abandoned that theory, and why the theory is still refuted by an objection due to Wittgenstein. 5. Hofweber, Thomas. 'Inexpressible Properties and Propositions.' Oxford Studies in Metaphysics . 2 vols. Ed. D. Zimmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 155–206. An indirect attack on the existence of propositions. Hofweber argues that sentences like 'Bill believes something that Hillary asserted' do not commit us to the existence of propositions. His view is that propositional quantification is an instance of what he calls 'internal' or 'inferential role' quantification, a kind of quantification that carries no ontological implications. 6. Schiffer, Stephen. The Things We Mean . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. esp. chs 1–2. Schiffer defends his theory of pleonastic propositions, on which propositions are unstructured, have no parts, and are very finely grained. 7. Bealer, George. 'Propositions.' Mind 107 (1998): 1–32. Bealer defends his algebraic theory of propositions, which, like Schiffer's pleonastic account, treats propositions as unstructured metaphysical simples. 8. King, Jeffrey. The Nature of and Structure of Content . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. The best developed current theory of the structure in structured propositions. King identifies propositions with certain kinds of facts in which objects, properties and relations are bound together by amalgams of syntactic and semantic relations. 9. Hanks, Peter. 'Recent Work on Propositions.' Philosophy Compass 4 (2009): 1–18. A survey of work on propositions since the mid-1990s that complements this teaching and learning guide. Contains responses to Jubien's and Hofweber's arguments against propositions and critical discussions of Schiffer's pleonastic propositions and King's theory of propositional structure. Online Resources 1. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/propositions/ Propositions (Matthew McGrath) 2. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/propositions-structured/ Structured Propositions (Jeffrey King) 3. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/propositions-singular/ Singular Propositions (Greg Fitch) Sample Partial Syllabus The following partial syllabus can be used as a unit on recent work on propositions in graduate level courses in philosophy of language or metaphysics. Week 1: A Substitution Puzzle About Propositional Designators King, Jeffrey. 'Designating Propositions'. Moltmann, Friederike. 'Propositional Attitudes Without Propositions.' Synthese 135 (2003): 77–118. Week 2: The Benacerraf Problem and Propositional Representation Benacerraf, Paul. 'What Numbers Could Not Be.' Philosophical Review 74 (1965): 47–73. Jubien, Michael. 'Propositions and the Objects of Thought.' Week 3: Propositional Quantification Hofweber, Thomas. 'Inexpressible Properties and Propositions'. Hofweber, Thomas. 'A Puzzle about Ontology.' Noûs 39 (2005): 256–83. Week 4: Schiffer on Pleonastic Propositions Schiffer, Stephen. 'Language-Created Language-Independent Entities.' Philosophical Topics 24 (1996): 149–67. Schiffer, Stephen. The Things We Mean , chs 1–2. Week 5: King on Structured Propositions King, Jeffrey. 'Structured Propositions and Complex Predicates.' Noûs , 29 (1995): 516–35. King, Jeffrey. The Nature and Structure of Content , chs 1–3. Focus Questions 1. Why does identifying propositions with sentence intensions, e.g. sets of possible worlds, 'require the attitudes to have a particular sort of closure under logical consequence, which they clearly don't have' (Mark Richard)? 2. How does the difference between (a) and (b) pose a threat to the existence of propositions? (a) Bill fears that Hillary will be president. (b) Bill fears the proposition that Hillary will be president. 3. What is the Benacerraf problem for metaphysical reductions of propositions? 4. Why must a proposition represent 'on its own cuff' (Michael Jubien)? Why is this a problem for the view that propositions are primitive abstract entities? 5. What does it mean to say that propositions are structured ? Give two different accounts of what propositional structure might be. (shrink)

The late Richard Rorty was no stranger to provocation, and many an analytic philosopher would surely count as extremely provocative comments he had made on Robert Brandom’s highly regarded book from 1994, Making It Explicit.1 Brandom’s book was, Rorty asserted “an attempt to usher analytic philosophy from its Kantian to its Hegelian stage.”2 The reception of Kant within analytic philosophy has surely been, at best, patchy, but if it is difficult to imagine exactly what Rorty could have had in (...) mind by analytic philosophy’s “Kantian phase,” the idea of an immanent Hegelian one would strike many as ludicrous. Given that the beginnings of analytic philosophy are conventionally described in terms of the radical break initiated by Russell and Moore with the Hegel-inspired idealism of their teachers at Cambridge in the closing years of the 19th century, the distinctly anti-Hegelian character of analytic philosophy has been held to be central. Moreover, the increasing naturalistic tenor of recent analytic philosophy would seem hardly propitious for a revival of 19th century idealism. And yet Rorty’s description should not be dismissed as mere provocation. (shrink)

A survey of the emergence of early analytic philosophy as a subfield of the history of philosophy. The importance of recent literature on Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein is stressed, as is the widening interest in understanding the nineteenth-century scientific and Kantian backgrounds. In contrast to recent histories of early analytic philosophy by P.M.S. Hacker and Scott Soames, the importance of historical and philosophical work on the significance of formalization is highlighted, as are the contributions made by those focusing on (...) systematic treatments of individual philosophers, traditions, and periods in relation to contemporary issues (rule-following, neo-Fregeanism, contextualism, theory of meaning). (shrink)

outrageous remarks about contradictions. Perhaps the most striking remark he makes is that they are not false. This claim first appears in his early notebooks (Wittgenstein 1960, p.108). In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein argued that contradictions (like tautologies) are not statements (Sätze) and hence are not false (or true). This is a consequence of his theory that genuine statements are pictures.

The idea that films can be philosophical, or in some sense 'do' philosophy, has recently found a number of prominent proponents. What is at stake here is generally more than the tepid claim that some documentaries about philosophy and related topics convey philosophically relevant content. Instead, the contention is that cinematic fictions, including popular movies such as The Matrix , make significant contributions to philosophy. Various more specific claims are linked to this basic idea. One, relatively weak, but pedagogically important (...) observation is that some films can be used to provide philosophy students with vivid and thought-provoking illustrations of philosophical issues. Film screenings stimulate discussion and may motivate renewed engagement with difficult philosophical texts. A stronger contention, however, seeks to link innovative and philosophically valuable thinking to 'the film itself' or to the 'specificity of the cinematic medium'. Such claims raise interesting questions, including questions about the status of the increasingly prevalent philosophically motivated interpretations of particular movies. Who is actually doing the philosophizing in such cases? Is it the audio-visual display, the film-maker, or the philosopher who devises an interpretation of the work? What is the role of specifically cinematic devices in the philosophical points made in such interpretations? Is there any tension between the goal of appreciating a film as a work of art and the goal of arguing that a film has significant implications for a position on a problem in philosophy? A course in the general area of cinema as philosophy can focus on issues related to the locus and status of cinematic philosophizing. It can also delve into specific films and film-makers and philosophically oriented interpretations of specific philosophical topics, such as personal identity. Issues pertaining to interpretation, meaning, and authorship can be usefully investigated in this connection, as can topics in meta-philosophy related to the very nature of philosophical insight or knowledge. Author Recommends Carroll, Noël and Jinhee Choi, eds. 2008. The Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology , Part VIII: Film and Knowledge. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 381–405. Inclues a brief introduction by Carroll followed by papers by Bruce Russell, Karen Hanson, and Lester H. Hunt. Kania, Andrew, ed. 2009. Memento . London: Routledge. A number of philosophers elucidate philosophical themes in Memento and discuss more general issues pertaining to cinema's philosophical significance. Livingston, Paisley. 2009. Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman: On Film as Philosophy . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Part 1 surveys arguments surrounding the cinema as philosophy theme, providing detailed criticisms of some of the bold theses in this area. Part 2 discusses issues related to cinematic authorship and the status of philosophically motivated interpretations of works of fiction, arguing for a partial intentionalist account of a work's meanings. Part 3 illustrates the intentionalist principles in a discussion of Ingmar Bergman's philosophical sources, providing insight into themes of motivated irrationality, inauthenticity, and self-knowledge in some of Bergman's works. Livingston, Paisley and Carl Plantinga, eds. 2009. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film , Part IV: Film as Philosophy. London: Routledge. 547–659. Offers a succinct survey by Wartenberg as well as entries on Ingmar Bergman, Terrence Malick, and Andrei Tarkovsky, discussions of film and specific philosophical topics (morality, skepticism, personal identity, and practical wisdom), and examples of philosophically motivated interpretations of three specific films: The Five Obstructions , Gattaca , and Memento . Smith, Murray and Thomas E. Wartenberg, eds. 2006. Thinking Through Cinema: Film as Philosophy . Malden, MA: Blackwell. A collection of papers that combines essays devoted to general positions on the cinema as philosophy topic as well as specific interpretations of works in different genres. Turvey, Malcolm. 2008. Doubting Vision: Film and the Revelationist Tradition . Oxford: Oxford University Press. A probing critical investigation into the assumptions underlying influential philosophical claims about the epistemic value of cinema. Wartenberg, Thomas E. 2008. Thinking on Screen: Film as Philosophy . London: Routledge. Ably surveys and responds to arguments against the idea that films can 'do philosophy'. It defends a conditionalist form of intentionalism in response to the 'imposition objection' according to which it is only the commentator who reads philosophical themes 'into' the movie; illustrates the favored account of film as philosophy with interpretations of specific cinematic fictions. Online Materials Film-Philosophy http://www.film-philosophy.com/ > Founded in 1996, this peer-reviewed online journal is dedicated to philosophically oriented interpretations of films and cinema studies more generally. The e-mail salon encourages discussion of related topics. Includes essays, festival reports, calls for papers, conference and job information, and book reviews. The archive includes contributions from 1997 to the present. Wartenberg, Thomas E. 'Philosophy of Film.' The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/film/ > A brief survey of a range of issues in the philosophy of cinema including a few paragraphs on the film as philosophy topic. Philosophical Films http://www.philfilms.utm.edu/2/filmlist.htm > A briefly annotated list of philosophical films grouped in rubrics such as 'The Meaning of Life' and 'Environmental Ethics'. Sample Syllabus What follows is a 4-week 'start-up module' followed by samples of optional units that focus on particular topics and cinematic examples. Introductory Module Week I: Introduction & Overview Livingston, Paisley. 'Recent Work on Cinema as Philosophy.' Philosophy Compass 3 (2008): 1–14, 20 (DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00158.x ). Wartenberg, Thomas E. 2009. 'Film as Philosophy.' The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Ed. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 549–59. Russell, Bruce. 2008. 'The Philosophical Limits of Film.' The Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology . Ed. Noël Carroll and Jinhee Choi. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 387–390. Week II: The Bold Thesis on Film as Philosophy Reading: Livingston, Paisley, 'Theses on Cinema as Philosophy.' Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman, Chapter One. 11–38. Screening: October (dir. Sergei Eisenstein 1928). Week III: Debating the Bold Thesis: The Case of October Carroll, Noël. 1998. 'For God and Country.' Interpreting the Moving Image . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 80–91. Smuts, Aaron. 2009. 'Film as Philosophy: In Defense of a Bold Thesis.' Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , 67:4: 409–20. Week IV: Cinema as Philosophy: Objections and Replies Livingston, Paisley. 2009. 'Arguing over Cinema as Philosophy.' Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman, Chapter Two. 39–59. Additional Optional Units Depending on the instructor's areas of interest and expertise, any of the following units could be added (and in some cases, easily expanded into longer segments). The Case of Ingmar Bergman Livingston, Paisley. 2009. 'Ingmar Bergman.' The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Eds. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 560–568. Screening(s): Wild Strawberries (dir. Ingmar Bergman 1957), or The Seventh Seal (dir. Ingmar Bergman 1957), or Persona (dir. Ingmar Bergman 1966). Skepticism Fumerton, Richard. 2009. 'Skepticism.' In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Eds. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 601–10. Screening: The Matrix (dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski 1999) or Total Recall (dir. Paul Verhoeven 1990). Ethics Kupfer, Joseph. 1999. Visions of Virtue in Popular Film . Boulder, CO: Westview. 35–60. Falzon, Chris. 2009. 'Why be Moral?' The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Eds. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 591–599. Screening: Groundhog Day (dir. <span class='Hi'>Harold</span> Ramis 1993), or Crimes and Misdemeanors (dir. Woody Allen 1989), or Hollow Man (dir. Paul Verhoeven 2000). Personal Identity Knight, Deborah. 2009. 'Personal Identity.' The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Eds. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 611–619. Hanley, Richard. 2009. ' Memento and Personal Identity: Are We Getting it Backwards?' Memento . Ed. Andrew Kania. London: Routledge. 107–126. Martin, Raymond. 2009. 'The Value of Memory: Reflections on Memento. ' Memento . Ed. Andrew Kania. London: Routledge. 87–106. Screening: Memento (dir. Christopher Nolan 2000). Freedom and (Genetic) Determinism Sesardic, Neven. 2009. 'Gattaca.' The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film . Eds. Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga. London: Routledge. 641–649. Screening: Gattaca (dir. Andrew Niccol 1997). Focus Questions • Is there anything special about the experience of fiction films that is especially well suited to the stimulation of worthwhile philosophical reflection? • Have any novel and philosophically significant ideas found their first expression in a cinematic work? • Under what circumstances can the film medium be used as an expression of a cinematic author's views? • What sort of background knowledge has to be in place for a film to be interpreted as articulating reasonably precise philosophical theses and arguments? • Does the goal of spelling out a film's philosophical meaning sometimes conflict with the goal of appreciating its value as a work of art? (shrink)

Graham Priest (1994) has argued that the following paradoxes all have the same structure: Russell’s Paradox, Burali-Forti’s Paradox, Mirimanoff’s Paradox, König’s Paradox, Berry’s Paradox, Richard’s Paradox, the Liar and Liar Chain Paradoxes, the Knower and Knower Chain Paradoxes, and the Heterological Paradox. Their common structure is given by Russell’s Schema: there is a property φ and function δ such that..

Platonism is the view that there exist such things as abstract objects — where an abstract object is an object that does not exist in space or time and which is therefore entirely non-physical and nonmental. Platonism in this sense is a contemporary view. It is obviously related to the views of Plato in important ways, but it is not entirely clear that Plato endorsed this view, as it is defined here. In order to remain neutral on this question, the (...) term ‘platonism’ is spelled with a lower-case ‘p’. (See entry on Plato.) The most important figure in the development of modern platonism is Gottlob Frege (1884, 1892, 1893-1903, 1919). The view has also been endorsed by many others, including Kurt Gödel (1964), Bertrand Russell (1912), and W.V.O. Quine (1948, 1951). (shrink)

This case study focuses on Roger Boisjoly's attempt to prevent the launch of the Challenger and subsequent quest to set the record straight despite negative consequences. Boisjoly's experiences before and after the Challenger disaster raise numerous ethical issues that are integral to any explanation of the disaster and applicable to other management situations. Underlying all these issues, however, is the problematic relationship between individual and organizational responsibility. In analyzing this fundamental issue, this paper has two objectives: first, to demonstrate the (...) extent to which the ethical ambiguity that permeates the relationship between individual and organizational responsibility contributed to the Challenger disaster; second, to reclaim the meaning and importance of individual responsibility within the diluting context of large organizations. (shrink)

1. In his book Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy (Hacker 1996), P.M.S.Hacker set up a very sharp opposition between Wittgenstein and analytic philosophy, on the one side, and Anglo-American philosophy drawing inspiration from Quine on the other. As a way of identifying analytic philosophy, the opposition is unconvincing: Hacker rightly insists on the variety of the analytic tradition, pointing out that different notions of philosophy’s role and even different notions of analysis prevailed with different philosophers at different moments. (...) But then, he wants to exclude Quine and other philosophers he regards as Quinean from the analytic tradition, without it being quite clear why the cleavage between Quine and the later Wittgenstein, or between Quine and Austin, should be so much wider or more crucial than the difference between, say, Austin and Russell (who are both included in the tradition). Anyway, in drawing the opposition Hacker focusses on one aspect that I would also like to concentrate upon. According to him, post-Quinean philosophy appears to be dominated by “modes of thought that emulate the forms of scientific theories, the jargon and formalization of respectable science, without the constraints of systematic data collecting, quantitative methods and experimental testing” (p.266); whereas analytic philosophy properly so called always conceived of itself as being other than science1, and the later Wittgenstein insisted that the attempt to emulate or ape natural science typically produces bad philosophy. In Hacker’s own words. (shrink)

Type-logical semantics studies linguistic meaning with the help of the theory of types. The latter originated with Russell as an answer to the paradoxes, but has the additional virtue that it is very close to ordinary language. In fact, type theory is so much more similar to language than predicate logic is, that adopting it as a vehicle of representation can overcome the mismatches between grammatical form and predicate logical form that were observed by Frege and Russell. The (...) grammatical forms of ordinary language sentences consequently may be taken to be much less misleading than logicians in the first half of the 20th century often thought them to be. This was realized by Richard Montague, who used the theory of types to translate fragments of ordinary language into a logical language. Semantics is commonly divided into lexical semantics, which studies the meaning of words, and compositional semantics, which studies the way in which complex phrases obtain a meaning from their constituents. The strength of type-logical semantics lies with the latter, but type-logical theories can be combined with many competing hypotheses about lexical meaning, provided these hypotheses are expressed using the language of type theory. (shrink)

In recent years philosophy of science has seen a resurgence of interest in metaphysical issues, especially those concerning laws, causation,and explanation. Although this book takes only the latter two words for its title, it is also about laws of nature. It is divided into three sections: the first is on causation, the second is on laws, and the third is on explanation: this is entirely appropriate because the debates about them are closely related. Ever since Hume argued that causation is (...) nothing more than regularities, laws have been more respectable than causes in philosophy. Perhaps this is also because science is replete with specially named laws which seem to play a central role in theories and explanations. Yet, as many philosophers have recently pointed out, contrary to Russell’s famous pronouncement that causation is a relic of a bygone age (quoted p. 3 by Psillos), the contemporary special sciences are very much concerned with the identification and investigation of all manner of causal structures. This raises the question of whether the apparent causal powers attributed to kinds in the special sciences are anything over and above a way of talking about the result of the operations of physical laws governing their microconstituents. Hence the logical empiricist’s project of showing how the laws of the special sciences reduce to those of physics. On their view, explanation, and in particular causal explanation, is nothing more than argument using the laws of nature as premises. However, this coveringlaw model of explanation has been subjected to intense criticism, and there have been attempts to construct alternatives that rely on the idea that to explain an event is to cite its real cause, where this cause need not be subsumed under any law. Since the demise of logical empiricism, or at least the waning of its influence, there has been a proliferation of theories about laws, causation and explanation, many of which differ radically from one another. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the Atlas-Kempson Thesis that sentences of the form The A is not B are not ambiguous but rather semantically general (Quine), non-specific (Zwicky and Sadock), or vague (G. Lakoff). This observation refutes the 1970 Davidson-Harman hypothesis that underlying structures, as full semantic representations, are logical forms. It undermines the conception of semantical presupposition, removes a support for the existence of truth-value gaps for presuppositional sentences (the remaining arguments for which are viciously circular), and lifts (...) the Russell-Strawson dispute of 1950–1964 from stalemate to a formulation in which a resolution is possible for the first time. Suggestions of Davidson, Montague, Stalnaker, Kaplan and H. P. Grice are shown to be inadequate semantic descriptions of negative, presuppositional sentences. I briefly discuss the radical Pragmatics view of my 1975 publications and suggest that it too fails to do justice to the linguistic data. I speculate that Semantic Representations should be given the form (more or less) of computer programs, describable in Dana Scott's mathematical semantics for programming languages. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell introduced several novel ideas in his 1903 Principles of Mathematics that he later gave up and never went back to in his subsequent work. Two of these are the related notions of denoting concepts and classes as many. In this paper we reconstruct each of these notions in the framework of conceptual realism and connect them through a logic of names that encompasses both proper and common names, and among the latter, complex as well as simple common (...) names. Names, proper or common, and simple or complex, occur as parts of quantifier phrases, which in conceptual realism stand for referential concepts, i.e., cognitive capacities that inform our speech and mental acts with a referential nature and account for the intentionality, or directedness, of those acts. In Russell’s theory, quantifier phrases express denoting concepts (which do not include proper names). In conceptual realism, names, as well as predicates, can be nominalized and allowed to occur as "singular terms", i.e., as arguments of predicates. Occurring as a singular term, a name denotes, if it denotes at all, a class as many, where, as in Russell’s theory, a class as many of one object is identical with that one object, and a class as many of more than one object is a plurality, i.e., a plural object that we call a group. Also, as in Russell’s theory, there is no empty class as many. When nominalized, proper names function as "singular terms" just the way they do in so-called free logic. Leśniewski’s ontology, which is also called a logic of names can be completely interpreted within this conceptualist framework, and the well-known oddities of Leśniewski’s system are shown not to be odd at all when his system is so interpreted. Finally, we show how the pluralities, or groups, of the logic of classes as many can be used as the semantic basis of plural reference and predication. We explain in this way Russell’s "fundamental doctrine upon which all rests", i.e., "the doctrine that the subject of a proposition may be plural, and that such plural subjects are what is meant by classes [as many] which have more than one term" (Russell 1938, p. 517). (shrink)

This paper concerns the rational reconstruction of physical theories initially advanced by F. P. Ramsey and later elaborated by Rudolf Carnap. The Carnap–Ramsey reconstruction of theoretical knowledge is a natural development of classical empiricist ideas, one that is informed by Russell's philosophical logic and his theories of propositional understanding and knowledge of matter; as such, it is not merely a schematic representation of the notion of an empirical theory, but the backbone of a general account of our knowledge (...) of the physical world. Carnap–Ramsey is an illuminating approach to epistemological problems that remain with us, one whose difficulties are shared by accounts that have sought to replace it. 1 Introduction 2 Russell's theory of propositional understanding 3 Ramsey's primary and secondary systems 4 Carnap's reconstruction of the language of science and an observation of Newman 5 Extension of the foregoing to constructive empiricism 6 Putnam's model-theoretic argument and the semantic view of theories 7 The problem clarified and resolved. (shrink)

Focusing on Truth explores the question of what truth is, balancing historical with issue-orientated discussion. The book offers a comprehensive survey of all the major theories of truth. Lawrence Johnson investigates a number of closely related matters of truth in his inquiry, such as: What sorts of things are true or false? What is attributed to them when they are said to be true or false? What do facts have to do with truth? What can we learn from previous theories? (...) The book opens with an analysis of the coherence theory of truth and then the correspondence theory of truth, as developed by Moore, Russell and Wittgenstein. Through a study of the semantic conceptions of truth, the author reveals that an adequate theory of truth must take account of the pragmatics of person, purpose, and circumstance. A full understanding of facts and truth bearers is considered central to Johnson's criticism of the opposing truth theories of J. L. Austin and P. F. Strawson. Drawing on the merits of these theories and others, while identifying their deficiencies, Johnson presents a new account of truth, based on the correlation of referential foci and the use of linguistic conventions. This account is defended as being adequate to meet the legitimate demands made on a theory of truth. Johnson argues that the account leaves scope for statements of many different sorts to be true in their own widely varying ways, without the existence of a need to posit fundamentally different kinds of truth. (shrink)

This paper proposes a revision of our understanding of causation that is designed to address what Hartry Field has suggested is the central problem in the metaphysics of causation today: reconciling Bertrand Russell’s arguments that the concept of causation can play no role in the advanced sciences with Nancy Cartwright’s arguments that causal concepts are essential to a scientific understanding of the world. The paper shows that Russell’s main argument is, ironically, very similar to an argument that Cartwright (...) has put forward against the truth of universal laws of nature. The paper uses this insight to develop an account of causation that does justice to traditional views yet avoids the arguments of Russell. (shrink)