H.P. Grice is known principally for his influential contributions to the philosophy of language, but his work also includes treatises on the philosophy of mind, ethics, and metaphysics--much of which is unpublished to date. This collection of original essays by such philosophers as Nancy Cartwright, Donald Davidson, Gilbert Harman, and P.F. Strawson demonstrates the unified and powerful character of Grice's thoughts on being, mind, meaning, and morals. An introductory essay by the editors provides the first overview of Grice's work.

The diffusion of technology in the US has taken place in an environment of both regulation and free enterprise. Each has been subject to manipulation by doctors and medical administrators that has fostered unprecedented ethical dilemmas and legal challenges. Understanding these developments and historical precedents may allow a more rational diffusion policy for medical technology in the future.

Computer and video games have become nearly ubiquitous among individuals in industrialized nations, and they have received increasing attention from researchers across many areas of scientific study. However, relatively little attention has been given to Massively-Multiplayer Online Games . The unique social context of MMOGs raises ethical questions about how communication occurs and how conflict is managed in the game world. In order to explore these questions, we compare the social context in Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and Disney’s Toontown, focusing (...) on griefing opportunities in each game. We consider ethical questions from the perspectives of players, game companies, and policymakers. (shrink)

This book builds on the idea that pragmatics and philosophy are strictly interconnected and that advances in one area will generate consequential advantages in the other area. The first part of the book, entitled ‘Theoretical Approaches to Philosophy of Language’, contains contributions by philosophers of language on connectives, intensional contexts, demonstratives, subsententials, and implicit indirect reports. The second part, ‘Pragmatics in Discourse’, presents contributions that are more empirically based or of a more applicative nature and that deal with the pragmatics (...) of discourse, argumentation, pragmatics and law, and context. The book presents perspectives which, generally, make most of the Gricean idea of the centrality of a speaker’s intention in attribution of meaning to utterances, whether one is interested in the level of sentence-like units or larger chunks of discourse. (shrink)

Existing research has examined if undergraduate factors influence chemistry and physics, or physical science, doctoral degree entry and whether variables during PhD programs associate with graduation. Yet research on the transition from bachelor’s degree to doctoral degree entry (i.e., PhD entry in less than 6 months, attainment of a master’s degree prior to doctoral degree entry, or working in a science-related job for more than a year prior to doctoral degree entry) on PhD degree graduation remains scarce. Our study examines (...) the transition from bachelor’s to doctoral degrees to see if experiences therein associate with female PhD graduation, after doctoral degree enrollment. Our logistic regression analysis, of female chemistry and physics doctorates (n = 867), indicated that attainment of a master’s degree did not change the likelihood of graduation, when compared to direct entry into physical science doctoral programs. Meanwhile working in a science-related job for a year or more is associated with a significantly lower likelihood of physical science doctoral graduation when compared to women who entered directly into PhD programs or received a master’s degree prior to enrollment. (shrink)

The translation is a careful one and the introduction by Warner Wick will prove helpful to students beginning their study of Kant's ethical writings.—S. A. E.

Articles on the relevance of Islam and a comparative look with European philosophy in the contemporary world.

In this volume, Alessandro Capone and Antonino Bucca’s essay makes a case, based upon the theory of pragmemes and socio-pragmatics, for taking Donald Trump’s statement to Comey, “I hope you will let Flynn go,” as an attempt of the President to get the then Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Comey to illegitimately drop the Russian probe, therefore being an illegal act of obstruction of justice. Their argument rests upon the claim that in this specific case, deniers of obstruction of justice (...) claims, when faced with Trump’s statements, must adopt a false theory of language in order to justify their conclusions. In his response, Richard Warner argues that though much of Capone and Bucca’s claims are convincing, and that much of the analysis of language in their article is accurate, even accepting their pragmeme and socio-pragmatic driven analysis, the content of Trump’s statement to Comey is not unequivocal enough to warrant certainty as to the obstruction claim. In this chapter one conclusion will be that Capone, Bucca and Warner all offer very important arguments useful in the accurate interpretation of Trump’s statement, and for interpretation in law generally. This conclusion will be supported and made more explicit by reading the essays in relation to Karl Llewellyn’s own constitutional theory, a theory that sees the constitution as an institution just partially, even minimally, based upon a purportedly “literal” reading of text. A further conclusion will be that theories of language, implicit or explicit, do indeed inevitably influence the analysis of statements like Trump’s at a very deep and profound level. Yet, thought this is all correct, I will argue that Trump’s statement, in context, cannot be read with such specificity so, in itself, it is sufficient evidence of obstruction of justice. (shrink)

H.P. Grice is a distinguished philosopher predominantly known for his influential contributions to the philosophy of language, but that is only one strand in a rich tapestry of ideas bearing on the philosophy of mind, ethics, and metaphysics as well. Some of the essays in this collection of original papers by leading philosophers edited by Grandy and Warner develop Grice's earlier work in the philosophy of language, but most of them discuss or present his newer and less-known work. Together (...) they demonstrate the unified and powerful character of his thoughts on being, mind, meaning, and morals. An introductory essay provides some of the first overview of Grice's thought, and makes explicit some of the relations among the essays. Grice's substantial response is followed by nineteen contributed papers whose authors include Donald Davidson, Stephen Schiffer, John Searle, and P.F. Strawson. The Times Literary Supplement writes of Grice: 'the only leader of whom it is true that the level of the discipline would be raised if most philosophers took him as a model of how to think and write.' This paperback edition replaces the hardback, published March 1986. (shrink)

The empirical data do not unequivocally support a consistent fixed capacity of four chunks. We propose an alternative account whereby capacity is limited by the precision of specifying the temporal and spatial context in which items appear, that similar psychophysical constraints limit number estimation, and that short term memory (STM) is continuous with long term memory (LTM).

Gary Becker and others have done important work to broaden the content of self interest, but have not departed from seeing rationality in terms of the exclusive pursuit of self-interest. One reason why committed behavior is important is that a person can have good reason to pursue objectives other than self interest maximization (no matter how broadly it is construed). Indeed, one can also follow rules of behavior that go beyond the pursuit of one's own goals, even if the goals (...) include non-self-interested concerns. By living in a society, one develops possible reasons for considering other people's goals as well, which takes one beyond an exclusive concentration on one's own goals, not to mention the single-minded pursuit of one's own self interest. The recognition of other people's goals may be a part of rational thought. If rational behavior may depart from the relentless pursuit of one's own goals, commitment has to be important in a theory of rationality. Furthermore, seeing the role of commitment in human behavior can have explanatory importance in allowing us to understand behavior patterns that are hard to fit into the narrow format of contemporary rational choice theory. Commitment is, thus, important both for practical reason and for causal explanation. Footnotes1 Paper presented at a Workshop on Rationality and Commitment at the University of St. Gallen, May 13–15, 2004. (shrink)

Abstract.The author examines the discipline of moral rights and in particular the need to embed them in a consequential system. He argues that the widely held opinion that independence from consequential evaluation is the right way of guaranteeing individual freedom is based on an inadequate appraisal of the role of moral rights in the social context. In this perspective he examines two specific cases: (1) elementary political and civil rights, and (2) the reproductive rights of women in the context of (...) poor countries with the problem of fast population growth. He argues that a coherent goal‐rights system which accommodates rights among others goals, can overcome the non‐consequential arguments and justify the force of moral rights fully within a consequentiality perspective. (shrink)

Theories on World origin and Human Nature.

In this paper I develop and present a unified account of information, misinformation, and disinformation and their interconnections. The unified account is rooted in Paul Grice’s notions of natural and non-natural meaning (in: Grice (ed) Studies in the way of words. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 213–223, 1957) and a corresponding distinction between natural and non-natural information (Scarantino and Piccinini in Metaphilosophy 41(3):313–330, 2010). I argue that we can specify at least three specific kinds of non-natural information. Thus, as varieties (...) of non-natural information there is intentionally non-misleading information, unintentionally misleading information—i.e. misinformation—and intentionally misleading information—i.e. disinformation. By shifting the focus from the truth-values of content to the intention/intentionality and misleadingness/non-misleadingness of that content I obtain a unified account that makes room for the potential misleadingness of true content (true disinformation), the potential non-misleadingness of false content (irony), and everything in between. (shrink)

Is the idea of a material mind intelligible? Or, to put it another way, is the hypothesis that the mind is the brain believable? This paper, firstly, claims that the materialistic project in contemporary philosophy of mind can only be accepted if both the general outlook of scientism and a specific scientific methodology to address the mind-body problem are taken for granted. The basic question — how are intentionality and consciousness possible, given mechanistic physicalism? — has a prima facie plausibility (...) on the presumption of scientistic naturalism. However, it is shown, secondly, that materialism is neither successful in the execution of its project nor ultimately intelligible or believable because its fundamental naturalistic presuppositions are in no way mandatory or compulsory. Finally, in order to evade the pitfalls of dualistic mystification after having critized the materialistic project an alternative Wittgensteinian attitude to the mind-body problem is suggested. (shrink)

Patients with behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) have difficulties recognizing facial emotions, a deficit that may contribute to their impaired social skills. In three experiments, we investigated the FTD deficit in recognition of facial emotions, by comparing six patients with impaired social conduct, nine Alzheimer’s patients, and 10 age-matched healthy adults. Experiment 1 revealed that FTD patients were impaired in the recognition of negative facial emotions. Experiment 2 replicated these findings when participants had to determine whether two faces were (...) expressing the same or different emotions. Experiment 3 was a control study in which participants had to discriminate whether two faces were of the same sex. In this non-emotional processing task, both patient groups performed worse than normal participants, but FTD patients performed as well as Alzheimer’s patients. We conclude that FTD patients are impaired in the recognition of negative facial emotions. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

This study explored possible deficits in selective attention brought about by Dementia of Alzheimer Type (DAT). In three experiments, we tested patients with early DAT, healthy elderly, and young adults under low memory demands to assess perceptual filtering, conflict resolution, and set switching abilities. We found no evidence of impaired perceptual filtering nor evidence of impaired conflict resolution in early DAT. In contrast, early DAT patients did exhibit a global cost in set switching consistent with an inability to maintain the (...) goals of the task (mental set). We discuss these findings in relation to the DAT literature on executive attention, dual-tasking, and working memory. Ó 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Personal information is key to informational privacy and the algorithmically generated profiles of individuals. However, the concept of personal information and its nature is rarely discussed. The concept of personal information thus seems to be based on an idea of information as objective and truthful—as natural information—that is depicted as digital footprints in the online and digital realm. I argue that the concept of personal information should exit the realm of natural information and enter the realm of nonnatural information—grounded in (...) meaning, intention, and convention—as this will provide us with a concept that can account for potential misleadingness, inaccuracies, and mistakes. (shrink)

1.1. Universitet. Chto on myslit? -- 1.2. Universitet. Chto on mozhet? -- 1.3. ... i chego ne mozhet? -- 2.1. Nauka. Zachem ėto nuzhno? -- 2.2. Obrazovanie. Kakoe obrazovanie? -- 2.3. Akademicheskie vobody. Dli︠a︡ chego? -- Zakli︠u︡chenie -- Chto pochitatʹ ob Universitete?

The basic risk for culture in conditions of globalization consists in full submission of its existence to economic (market) rules. The masscult deprived a variety - a product of such submission. But a source of creative development was and there is a cultural variety. Domination of a masscult leads to decrease in creative potential of the person and a society. Becoming of metaculture as culture of gift of a modern society represents alternative as to principles of a masscult, and ideas (...) of multiculturalism and tolerance. The principle of tolerance is a recognition of powerlessness to involve cultures in productive dialogue, de-facto it is recognition of the established cultural barriers. The culture of gift (metaculture) is based on following principles: 1) reflexivity, 2) ethicness, 3) positive role ofOtherness, 4) the sacrifice of an autonomy to (accept of gift), 5) new cultural-historical type of rationality is focused not on things, but on events, 6) more easy approach to products of cultural creativity and in this direction - alternative to deadlocks of protection to intellectual property (copyright). Development of metaculture corresponds to principles of a symbolical exchange and «copyleft». (shrink)