The aim of this paper is to show that we can deny that reality is neatly segmented into natural kinds and still give a plausible view about what science is supposed to do – and the way science in fact works does not rely on the dubious metaphysical assumption that reality is segmented into natural kinds. The score is simple: either there are natural kinds or there aren’t. The former view has been the default position in mainstream analytic metaphysics and (...) philosophy of science. I want to put the latter on the table as a metaphysically and scientifically plausible alternative. (shrink)
I take it for granted that sense experiential states provide reasons for empirical beliefs; indeed this claim forms the first premise of my central argument for (CC). 1 The subsequent stages of the argument are intended to establish that a person has such a reason for believing something about the way things are in the world around him only if he is in some mental state or other with a conceptual content: a conceptual state. Thus, given that sense experiential states (...) do provide reasons for empirical beliefs, they must have conceptual content. (shrink)
Merleau-Ponty's reference to "a past which has never been present" at the end of "Le sentir" challenges the typical framework of the Phenomenology of Perception, with its primacy of perception and bodily field of presence. In light of this "original past," I propose a re-reading of the prepersonal as ground of perception that precedes the dichotomies of subject-object and activity-passivity. Merleau-Ponty searches in the Phenomenology for language to describe this ground, borrowing from multiple registers (notably Bergson, but also Husserl). This (...) "sensory life" is a coexistence of sensing and sensible—bodily and worldly—rhythms. Perception is, then, not a natural given, but a temporal process of synchronization between rhythms. By drawing on Bergson, this can be described as a process in which virtual life is actualized into perceiving subject and object perceived. Significantly, this process involves non-coincidence or delay whereby sensory life is always already past for perception. (shrink)
Abstract. Let REL(O*E) be the relation algebra of binary relations defined on the Boolean algebra O*E of regular open regions of the Euclidean plane E. The aim of this paper is to prove that the canonical contact relation C of O*E generates a subalgebra REL(O*E, C) of REL(O*E) that has infinitely many elements. More precisely, REL(O*,C) contains an infinite family {SPPn, n ≥ 1} of relations generated by the relation SPP (Separable Proper Part). This relation can be used to define (...) point-free concept of connectedness that for the regular open regions of E coincides with the standard topological notion of connectedness, i.e., a region of the plane E is connected in the sense of topology if and only if it has no separable proper part. Moreover, it is shown that the contact relation algebra REL(O*E, C) and the relation algebra REL(O*E, NTPP) generated by the non-tangential proper parthood relation NTPP, coincide. This entails that the allegedly purely topological notion of connectedness can be defined in mereological terms. (shrink)
Though the vegetarian movement sparked by Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation has achieved some success, there is more animal suffering caused today due to factory farming than there was when the book was originally written. In this paper, I argue that there may be a technological solution to the problem of animal suffering in intensive factory farming operations. In particular, I suggest that recent research indicates that we may be very close to, if not already at, the point where we (...) can genetically engineer factory-farmed livestock with a reduced or completely eliminated capacity to suffer. In as much as animal suffering is the principal concern that motivates the animal welfare movement, this development should be of central interest to its adherents. Moreover, I will argue that all people concerned with animal welfare should agree that we ought to replace the animals currently used in factory farming with animals whose ability to suffer is diminished if we are able to do so. (shrink)
One can appreciate Anarchy, State and Utopia on many levels. Its emphasis on individual freedom is a refreshing change of pace. It questions assumptions that have long been sacrosanct. It puts forth a theory of entitlement which is nothing short of remarkable in this day and age. And most importantly, it is being taken seriously by the press and, hopefully, the establishment philosophers as well. But Professor Nozick has attempted more than this. He has attempted to refute the anarchist position. (...) This is a rare endeavor. Few have taken the anarchist position seriously enough to refute it. Few understand it well enough to do it justice. Dr. Nozick displays an intimate knowledge of the anarchist position and yet he rejects it. His refutation is novel, intricate and many-faceted. But does it succeed? In this paper I shall try to outline a few reasons why I think it does not. Nozick begins by asserting that "Individuals have rights..." (ix).§ The purpose of the “first part of his book (the _only part which we shall treat here) is to see if it is possible to evolve a state or "state-like entity" (118} without any violation of individual rights. I-Ie concludes that such a thing is possible and likely as well. I shall confine my examination to the possibility that a state might exist which does not violate individual rights ab initio. ‘ln a state of nature an individual may himself enforce his rights, defend himself. (shrink)
This paper is a reexamination of Two Dogmas in the light of Quine's ongoing debate with Carnap over analyticity. It shows, first, that analytic is a technical term within Carnap's epistemology. As such it is intelligible, and Carnap's position can meet Quine's objections. Second, it shows that the core of Quine's objection is that he (Quine) has an alternative epistemology to advance, one which appears to make no room for analyticity. Finally, the paper shows that Quine's alternative epistemology is (...) itself open to very serious objections. Quine is not thereby refuted, but neither can Carnap's analyticity be dismissed as dogma. (shrink)
The distinguished theologian, David Ray Griffin, has advanced a set of thirteen theses intended to characterize (what he calls) “Neo-Darwinism” and which he contrasts with “Intelligent Design”. Griffin maintains that Neo-Darwinism is “atheistic” in forgoing a creator but suggests that, by adopting a more modest scientific naturalism and embracing a more naturalistic theology, it is possible to find “a third way” that reconciles religion and science. The considerations adduced here suggest that Griffin has promised more than he can deliver. On (...) his account, God is in laws of nature; therefore, any influence He exerts is natural rather than supernatural. But if the differences God makes are not empirically detectable, then Griffin’s account is just as objectionable as a theory of supernatural intervention. And Griffin has not shown that evolution as distinct from his idiosyncratic sense of Neo-Darwinism is incompatible with theism. (shrink)
The philosophical method of conceptual analysis has been criticised on the grounds that empirical psychological research has cast severe doubt on whether concepts exist in the form traditionally assumed, and that conceptual analysis therefore is doomed. This objection may be termed the Charge from Psychology. After a brief characterisation of conceptual analysis, I discuss the Charge from Psychology and argue that it is misdirected.
Using the occasion of the publication of a Blackwell anthology in the philosophy of technology, Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition (2003), as a key to the contemporary role of this subdiscipline, this article reviews the current state-of-this-art. Both philosophy of science and philosophy of technology are twentieth century inventions, but each has followed a somewhat different set of philosophical traditions and pursued sometimes divergent questions. Here the primary developments of recent philosophy of technology are examined with emphasis upon issues (...) which might also be of greater interest to philosophers of science. These include epistemological, but also environmental and cultural issues. The bibliographical spread includes references to some fifty recent books in the field. (shrink)
While a considerable amount of effort has been expended in an attempt to understand Ludwig Wittgenstein’s enigmatic comments about silence and the mystical at the end of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , very little attention has been paid to the implications of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations for the study of ineffability. This paper first argues that, since Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations problematizes private language, emphasizes the description of actual language use, and recognizes the rule-governed nature of language, it contains significant implications for the study (...) of ineffability, inviting investigations of the ways in which putative ineffability actually gets expressed rather than speculation about whether there are ineffable objects or experiences. It then undertakes such an investigation in the Dionysian corpus, finding therein not only grammatical techniques that express inexpressibility at the referential, illocutionary, and semiotic levels but also rules that underlie and govern these techniques. Finally, it shows how a recovery of the ordinary uses of ineffability might help dissolve the metaphysical problem of ineffability, thereby bringing ineffability back to the everyday. (shrink)
In his latest book, The Elm and the Expert (1994), Fodor notoriously rejects the notion of narrow content as superfluous. He envisions a scientific intentional psychology that adverts only to broad content properties in its explanations. I argue that Fodor's change in view is only apparent and that his previous position (1985-1991) is extensionally equivalent to his "new" position (1994). I show that, despite what he says narrow content is for in his (1994), Fodor himself has previously never appealed to (...) the notion of narrow content in explaining Frege cases and cases involving the so-called deferential concepts. And for good reason: his notion of narrow content (1985-91) couldn't explain them. The only apparent change concerns his treatment of Twin Earth cases. However, I argue that the notion of broad content that his purely informational semantics delivers is, in some interesting sense, equivalent to the mapping notion of narrow content he officially gave up. For his pure informational semantics fails to avoid assigning disjunctive content to twins, since nomic covariations take care not only actual but also counterfactual contexts into account. I show that none of the attempts made by Fodor to block this consequence of his theory works. The present notion of broad content he now operates with is therefore in a position to take over all the important jobs that his previous notion of narrow content could do. (shrink)
The American Medical Association enacted its Code of Ethics in 1847, the first such national codification. In this volume, a distinguished group of experts from the fields of medicine, bioethics, and history of medicine reflect on the development of medical ethics in the United States, using historical analyses as a springboard for discussions of the problems of the present, including what the editors call "a sense of moral crisis precipitated by the shift from a system of fee-for-service medicine to a (...) system of fee-for-system medicine, better known as 'managed care.'" The authors begin with a look at how the medical profession began to consider ethical issues in the 1800s and subsequent developments in the 1900s. They then address the sociological, historical, ethical, and legal aspects of the practice of medicine. Later chapters discuss current and future challenges to medical ethics and professional values. Appendixes display various versions of the AMA's Code of Ethics as it has evolved over time. Contributors: George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H., Arthur Isak Applbaum, Ph.D., Robert B. Baker, Ph.D., Chester R. Burns, M.D., Ph.D., Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., Alexander Morgan Capron, J.D., Christine K. Cassel, M.D., Linda L. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., Eliot L. Freidson, Ph.D., Albert R. Jonsen, Ph.D., Stephen R. Latham, J.D., Ph.D., Susan E. Lederer, Ph.D., Florencia Luna, Ph.D., Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., Charles E. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Mark Siegler, M.D., Rosemary A. Stevens, Ph.D., Robert M. Tenery, Jr., M.D., Robert M. Veatch, Ph.D., John Harley Warner, Ph.D., Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D. (shrink)
The answer in a nutshell is: Yes, five years ago, but nobody has noticed. Nobody noticed because the majority of social scientists subscribe to one of the following views: (1) the ‘anomalous’ behaviour observed in standard prisoner’s dilemma or ultimatum game experiments has refuted standard game theory a long time ago; (2) game theory is flexible enough to accommodate any observed choices by ‘refining’ players’ preferences; or (3) it is just a piece of pure mathematics (a tautology). None of these (...) views is correct. This paper defends the view that GT as commonly understood is not a tautology, that it suffers from important (albeit very recently discovered) empirical anomalies, and that it is not flexible enough to accommodate all the anomalies in its theoretical framework. It also discusses the experiments that finally refuted game theory, and concludes trying to explain why it took so long for experimental game theorists to design experiments that could adequately test the theory. (shrink)
The indispensability argument, which claims that science requires beliefs in mathematical entities, gives a strong motivation for mathematical realism. However, mathematical realism bears Benacerrafian ontological and epistemological problems. Although recent accounts of mathematical realism have attempted to cope with these problems, it seems that, at least, a satisfactory account of epistemology of mathematics has not been presented. For instance, Maddy's realism with perceivable sets and Resnik's and Shapiro's structuralism have their own epistemological problems. This fact has been a reason to (...) rebut the indispensability argument and adopt mathematical nominalism. Since mathematical nominalism purports to be committed only to concretia, it seems that mathematical nominalism is epistemically friendlier than mathematical realism. However, when it comes to modal mathematical nominalism, this claim is not trivial. There is a reason for doubting the modal primitives that it invokes. In this thesis, this doubt is investigated through Chihara's Constructibility Theory. Chihara's Constructibility Theory purports not to be committed to abstracta by replacing existential assertions of the standard mathematics with ones of constructibility. However, the epistemological status of the primitives in Chihara's system can be doubted. Chihara might try to argue that the problem would dissolve by using possible world semantics as a didactic device to capture the primitive notions. Nonetheless, his analysis of possible world semantic is not plausible, when considered as a part of the project of nominalizing mathematics in terms of the Constructibility Theory. (shrink)
Many scientists, if pushed, may be inclined to hazard the guess that the universe is comprehensible, even physically comprehensible. Almost all, however, would vehemently deny that science has already established that the universe is comprehensible. It is, nevertheless, just this that I claim to be the case. Once one gets the nature of science properly into perspective, it becomes clear that the comprehensibility of the universe is as secure an item of current scientific knowledge as anything theoretical in science can (...) be, more secure, indeed, than the most firmly established fundamental theories of physics, such as quantum theory or Einstein's general theory of relativity. (shrink)
For several years, through the “material theory of induction,” I have urged that inductive inferences are not licensed by universal schemas, but by material facts that hold only locally (Norton, 2003, 2005). My goal has been to defend inductive inference against inductive skeptics by demonstrating when and how inductive inferences are properly made. Since I have always admired Peter Achinstein as a staunch defender of induction, it was a surprise when Peter..
Reasons for the limited uptake of the clinician–scientist role within nursing are examined, specifically: the lack of consensus about the nature of nursing science; the varying approaches to epistemology; and the influence of post-modern thought on knowledge development in nursing. It is suggested that under-development of this role may be remedied by achieving agreement that science is a necessary, worthy pursuit for nursing, and that rigorous science conducted from a clinical perspective serves nursing well. Straddling practice and research is a (...) powerful strategy for ensuring relevant research while forging strong links with practice. The clinician–scientist role, typically requiring a 75:25 ratio between research and clinical activities, is well established in medicine. Nursing, however, has been slow to institute the role; it is rare within North America, Australia, and western European countries, and almost non-existent outside those areas. Beyond structural obstacles, philosophical issues may explain nursing's reluctance to implement the role. Following a survey of clinician–scientist roles throughout the world, the nature of nursing science and epistemology, and the influence of post-modern thought on nursing attitudes to research are examined with respect to their influence on this role. The nurse clinician–scientist role holds promise for making strides in clinically relevant research, and for accelerating the knowledge cycle from clinical problem to research question to change in clinical practice. (shrink)
I argue that Linda Zagzebski's proposed solution to the Meno Problem faces serious challenges. The Meno Problem, roughly, is how to explain the value that knowledge, as such, has over mere true belief. Her proposed solution is that believings—when thought of more like actions—can have value in virtue of their motivations. This meshes nicely with her theory that knowledge is, essentially, virtuously motivated true belief. Her solution fails because it entails that, necessarily, all knowledge is motivated in a way that (...) resembles the motivation of actions. Crucially, Zagzebski says the value derived from motivation comes from certain laudable feelings—like love of truth (she is explicit that love is a feeling). But there are possible cases of knowledge—probably some of which are actual—in which subjects do not or cannot experience these feelings. (shrink)
Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most popular and controversial philosophers of the last 150 years. Narcissistic, idiosyncratic, hyperbolic, irreverent--never has a philosopher been appropriated, deconstructed, and scrutinized by such a disparate array of groups, movements, and schools of thought. Adored by many for his passionate ideas and iconoclastic style, he is also vilified for his lack of rigor, apparent cruelty, and disdain for moral decency. In Living with Nietzsche, Solomon suggests that we read Nietzsche from a very different point (...) of view, as a provocative writer who means to transform the way we view our lives. This means taking Nietzsche personally. Rather than focus on the "true" Nietzsche or trying to determine "what Nietzsche really meant" by his seemingly random and often contradictory pronouncements about "the Big Questions" of philosophy, Solomon reminds us that Nietzsche is not a philosopher of abstract ideas but rather of the dazzling personal insight, the provocative challenge, the incisive personal probe. He does not try to reveal the eternal verities but he does powerfully affect his readers, goading them to see themselves in new and different ways. It is Nietzsche's compelling invitation to self-scrutiny that fascinates us, engages us, and guides us to a "rich inner life." Ultimately, Solomon argues, Nietzsche is an example as well as a promulgator of "passionate inwardness," a life distinguished by its rich passions, exquisite taste, and a sense of personal elegance and excellence. (shrink)
Although contemporary Western culture and criticism has usually valued composition over improvisation and placed the authority of a musical work with the written text rather than the performer, this essay posits these divisions as too facile to articulate the complex dynamics of making music in any genre or form. Rather it insists that music should be understood as pieces that are created with specific intentions by composers but which possess possibilities of interpretation that can only be brought out through performance.
What is typical of Hayek's challenge concerning socialism is that he always maintained that this question was for economic theory to decide. Sketching the historical background of what has come to be known as the "socialist calculation debate" (section 1), I try to link this debate with the Menger-Wieser Zurechnungsproblem and show that the Pareto-Barone approach has determined the theoretical form of this economic controversy. I then go on to explore Hayek's 'inapplicability' argument (section 2) and try to show how (...) it is related to Mises' 'logical impossibility’ argument. This is followed by an examination of Hayek's second argument (section 3), which I refer to as 'the evolutionary argument'. I display what is the specific gist of this argument and connect it tightly to the first one. I then discuss certain methodological issues (section 4) pertaining to the allegedly radical difference between Mises' arguments and Hayek's tentative refutation of socialism. Here I challenge the received view that Mises' based his case on the 'impossibility in principle' of socialism, whereas Hayek's own position was to challenge the 'possibility in practice' of a centrally planned economy. This reading (especially by Willem Keizer) of Hayek's contribution to the debate seems to me misguided and unwarranted. I attempt to propose, on the contrary, that both lines of reasoning involve the same kind as arguments since both of them should be interpreted as impossibility theorems. Finally (section 5) I try to give an appropriate and adequate answer to the question raised in the title of this paper. (shrink)
Ever since the collapse of Soviet-bloc socialism, and the associated breakup of the Soviet Union itself, it has been accepted by the vast majority of political economists that Friedrich A. Hayek and his fellow Austrians, notably his mentor, Ludwig von Mises, were the unequivocal victors in the famous “socialist calculation debate” that had raged for a good seven decades. It was over. The anti-socialist, Austrian position had won. Market capitalism was triumphant in both theory and practice. The combination of lack (...) of incentives and inevitably dispersed and asymmetric information had doomed command central planning of economies, especially in an increasingly complicated modern world economy (Rosser and Rosser, 2004, Chap. 3). (shrink)
Research in Science and Technology Studies (STS) tends to presume that intellectual and political radicalism go hand in hand. One would therefore expect that the most intellectually radical movement in the field relates critically to its social conditions. However, this is not the case, as demonstrated by the trajectory of the Parisian School of STS spearheaded by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour. Their position, "actor-network theory," turns out to be little more than a strategic adaptation to the democratization of expertise (...) and the decline of the strong nation-state in France over the past 25 years. This article provides a prehistory of this client-driven, contract-based research culture in U.S. sociology of the 1960s, followed by specific features of French philosophical and political culture that have bred the distinctive tenets of actor-network theory. Insofar as actor-network theory has become the main paradigm for contemporary STS research, it reflects a field that dodges normative commitments in order to maintain a user-friendly presence. (shrink)
Most scientists would hold that science has not established that the cosmos is physically comprehensible – i.e. such that there is some as-yet undiscovered true physical theory of everything that is unified. This is an empirically untestable, or metaphysical thesis. It thus lies beyond the scope of science. Only when physics has formulated a testable unified theory of everything which has been amply corroborated empirically will science be in a position to declare that it has established that the cosmos is (...) physically comprehensible. But this argument presupposes a widely accepted but untenable conception of science which I shall call standard empiricism. According to standard empiricism, in science theories are accepted solely on the basis of evidence. Choice of theory may be influenced for a time by considerations of simplicity, unity, or explanatory capacity, but not in such a way that the universe itself is permanently assumed to be simple, unified or physically comprehensible. In science, no thesis about the universe can be accepted permanently as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. Granted this view, it is clear that science cannot have established that the universe is physically comprehensible. Standard empiricism is, however, as I have indicated, untenable. Any fundamental physical theory, in order to be accepted as a part of theoretical scientific knowledge, must satisfy two criteria. It must be (1) sufficiently empirically successful, and (2) sufficiently unified. Given any accepted theory of physics, endlessly many empirically more successful disunified rivals can always be concocted – disunified because they assert that different dynamical laws govern the diverse phenomena to which the theory applies. These disunified rivals are not considered for a moment in physics, despite their greater empirical success. This persistent rejection of empirically more successful but disunified rival theories means, I argue, that a big, highly problematic, implicit assumption is made by science about the cosmos, to the effect, at least, that the cosmos is such that all seriously disunified theories are false. Once this point is recognized, it becomes clear, I argue, that we need a new conception of science which makes explicit, and so criticizable and improvable the big, influential, and problematic assumption that is at present implicit in physics in the persistent preference for unified theories. This conception of science, which I call aim-oriented empiricism, represents the assumption of physics in the form of a hierarchy of assumptions. As one goes up the hierarchy, the assumptions become less and less substantial, and more and more nearly such that their truth is required for science, or the pursuit of knowledge, to be possible at all. At each level, that assumption is accepted which (a) best accords with the next one up, and (b) has, associated with it the most empirically progressive research programme in physics, or holds out the greatest hope of leading to such an empirically progressive research programme. In this way a framework of relatively insubstantial, unproblematic, fixed assumptions and associated methods is created, high up in the hierarchy, within which much more substantial and problematic assumptions and associated methods, low down in the hierarchy, can be changed, and indeed improved, as scientific knowledge improves. One assumption in this hierarchy of assumptions, I argue, is that the cosmos is physically comprehensible – that is, such that some yet-to-be-discovered unified theory of everything is true. Hence the conclusion: improve our ideas about the nature of science and it becomes apparent that science has already established that the cosmos is physically comprehensible – in so far as science can ever establish anything theoretical. (shrink)
Research into consciousness has now become respectable, and much has been written about it. Is consciousness the exclusive property of human beings, or can it be found also in animals? Can machines become conscious? Is consciousness an illusion, and are all mental states ultimately reducible to the movement of molecules? If consciousness is other than matter, what connection does it have with matter? These and others like them are now serious scientific questions in the West. This article discusses consciousness within (...) the frame of the following assertions: Consciousness has evolved from earlier states of awareness to be found in lower forms of life. The current scientific method is too restrictive for the study of conscience and its evolution. In particular classical logic leads scientists to ignore or reject consciousness as a legitimate field of study. Mind and matter, generalized as knowing and being, have equal status. (shrink)
For over fifty years, scholars have argued that a therapeutic ethos has begun to change how people think about themselves and others. There is also a growing concern that the therapeutic ethos has influenced educational theory and practice, perhaps to their detriment. This review article discusses three books, The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education (by Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes), Aristotle, Emotions, and Education (by Kristján Kristjánsson), and The Therapy of Education (by Paul Smeyers, Richard Smith and Paul Standish), that (...) point to the problematic assumptions and outcomes of therapeutic educational practices. The authors of the three books, however, disagree about whether a focus on emotions or therapy in education is necessarily an unwelcome intrusion into education. (shrink)
For the legal system to function effectively people are generally viewed as autonomous actors able to exercise choice and responsible for their actions. It is conceivable that genetic traits associated with violent and antisocial behaviour could call into question an affected individual’s responsibility for acts of criminal violence. Evidence concerning genes associated with violent and antisocial behaviour has been introduced in criminal courts in USA and Italy, either alone or with associated environmental factors. One example of a ‘genetic defence’ is (...) based on low levels of monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) activity, with a prevalence of around thirty percent in Caucasian males. In countries with trial by jury it is particularly relevant to consider the views of publics on criminal liability and the significance they assign to evidence citing genetic influences on behaviour. This article draws on largely qualitative research looking at participants’ explanations of, and assigning of responsibility for, violent and antisocial behaviour where environmental or genetic influences are claimed. Genetic factors were not viewed deterministically by participants but were considered by most to be irrelevant to personal responsibility. Notions of human agency, free will and choice were crucial to explanations of problem behaviours and ensured that offenders could be held responsible despite evidence on environmental and genetic factors. (shrink)
The celebration of thirty years of publication of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy provides an opportunity to reflect on how medical ethics has evolved over that period. The reshaping of the field has occurred in no small part because of the impact of branches of philosophy other than ethics. These have included influences from Kantian theory of respect for persons, personal identity theory, philosophy of biology, linguistic analysis of the concepts of health and disease, personhood theory, epistemology, and political (...) philosophy. More critically, medicine itself has begun to be reshaped. The most fundamental restructuring of medicine is currently occurring - stemming, in part, from the application of contemporary philosophy of science to the medical field. There is no journal more central to these critical events of the past three decades than The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. (shrink)
A model positing that perception of another's affective state automatically generates matching emotional and instrumental responses predicts more than has ever been observed. Reflexive empathicness would produce emotional exhaustion, inhibitory strain, and debilitate everyday functioning. Self-regulation of empathic responses involves, not only reactive inhibition, but agentic proactive control. Pervasive inhumanities involve selective disengagement of empathic restraints through dissociative psychosocial mechanisms.
Although the periodic system of elements is central to the study of chemistry and has been influential in the development of quantum theory and quantum mechanics, its study has been largely neglected in philosophy of science. The present article is a detailed criticism of one notable exception, an attempt by Hettema and Kuipers to axiomatize the periodic table and to discuss the reduction of chemistry in this context.
It is shown that there are categorical differences between sentences and statements, which have the consequence in particular that there are no paradoxical cases of self-reference with the latter as there are with the former. The point corrects an extensive train of thought that Graham Priest has pursued over recent years, but also a much wider tradition in logic and the foundations of mathematics that has been dominant for over a century. That tradition might be broadly characterized as Formalist, or (...) Nominalist, and the improved understanding of statements leads us instead into a more Realist approach and thereby contentful logic and mathematics. (shrink)
Jan Österberg is one of the pioneers in the field of population ethics. He started thinking about this issue already in the late 60s and he has developed one of the most original and interesting population axiologies.1 I’ve discussed the problems and drawbacks of Österberg’s theory elsewhere, and I don’t think that this is the place and time to discuss them again.2 Rather, I shall show that Österberg’s theory has a feature in common with the population axiologies of such luminaries (...) like Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Heidegger, had they developed such a theory: None of these theories simultaneously satisfy five weak adequacy conditions. We shall show this by proving that no population axiology satisfies these five conditions. As a fringe benefit, this theorem also shows that the on-going project of constructing an acceptable population axiology has very gloomy prospects. 3.. (shrink)
If any thesis is all-but-universally accepted by contemporary epistemologists, it is justificationism-the thesis that being an instance of knowledge has to include being epistemically justified in some appropriate way. If there is to be any epistemological knowledge about knowledge, a paradigm candidate would seem to be our knowledge that justificationism is true. This is a conception of a way in whichknowledge has to be robust. Nevertheless, this paper provides reason to doubt the truth of that conception. Even epistemology’s supposed conceptual (...) core is not as epistemically unchallengeable as we might have assumed to be the case. (shrink)
Two claims common in wittgenstein exegesis are addressed, With special reference to a well-known discussion by Peter Winch. First: the claim that one person's language must be intelligible to another is ambiguous; one interpretation is intuitively plausible; strong, Less plausible versions are ascribed to Wittgenstein. Inattention to the ambiguity noted could facilitate their acceptance. Second: the claim that the necessity for standards of correctness in the use of language has as a direct consequence the need for social standards is false (...) and probably misrepresents Wittgenstein. (shrink)
It is explained that, in the sense of the sociologist Erving Goffman, mathematics has a front and a back. Four pervasive myths about mathematics are stated. Acceptance of these myths is related to whether one is located in the front or the back.
Social justice education, it is argued, is a form of and essential to moral education, especially for dominant group affiliated students. Under this condition, one of the essential goals of social justice education must be raising an awareness of dominance. The meaning of dominance is discussed and it is argued that overly simplistic conceptions of what dominance means may lead to the mistaken assumption that in order to recognise one's own dominance, one has to reject the values of the dominant (...) group. The distinction between the "dominance of values" and the "values of the dominant group" is suggested but found inadequate. What is required is a critical analysis of the complexity, subtlety and systemic interrelatedness and embeddedness of dominant beliefs, values and standards in western, democratic societies. Without a serious approach to the complexities of dominance, future teachers will not be able to tend successfully to all their students, will not be able to contribute to social justice and will be able to hide all this behind good intentions. (shrink)
. This paper presents the findings of two surveys conducted in April 2003 of Chartered Life Underwriters (CLUs) and Chartered Financial Consultants (ChFCs) who are members of the Society of Financial Service Professionals. The first survey of 3000 CLUs and ChFCs – the life insurance industry’s most highly regarded professionals – was aimed at identifying the key ethical issues faced by professionals working in the life insurance industry today. A comparison of these findings with those of earlier studies conducted in (...) 1990 and 1995 suggests that while the key ethical issues facing those working in the life insurance business today are essentially the same as those encountered during industry’s highly troubled ethical environment of the early 1990s, these issues are perceived as presenting somewhat less serious problems than in the past. The second survey of 3000 CLUs and ChFCs was aimed at determining the extent to which these professionals perceive the industry created Insurance Marketplace Standards Association (IMSA) as having contributed to any change in the ethical environment that has taken place. The findings suggest that IMSA has played an important role in influencing senior managers to more strongly encourage and support ethical market conduct, a critical step in improving the industry’s ethical environment. (shrink)
The objective of this article is to investigate ethical aspects of technology through the moral term “paternalism”. The field of investigation is medicine. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, “paternalism” has gained moral relevance through modern medicine, where physicians have been accused of behaving paternalistic and threatening patients’ autonomy. Secondly, medicine is a brilliant area to scrutinise the evaluative aspects of technology. It is argued that paternalism is a morally relevant term for the ethics of technology, but that its (...) traditional conception is not adequate to address the challenges of modern technology. A modification towards a “technological paternalism” is necessary. That is, “technological paternalism” is a fruitful term in the ethics of technology. Moreover, it is suited to point out the deficiencies of the traditional concept of paternalism and to reform and vitalise the conception of paternalism in ethics in order to handle the challenges of technology. (shrink)
The Representational Theory of the Mind (RTM) has been forcefully and subtly developed by Jerry A. Fodor. According to the RTM, psychological states that explain behavior involve tokenings of mental representations. Since the RTM is distinguished from other approaches by its appeal to the meaning or "content" of mental representations, a question immediately arises: by virtue of what does a mental representation express or represent an environmental property like coto or shoe? This question asks for a general account of the (...) semantics of mental representation. Fodor places two conditions on the requisite theory: it must be physi calistic (that is, it must be couched in nonsemantic and nonintentional terms, free of expressions like "refers to" or "denotes" or "means that"), and it must be atomistic (that is, it must allow that the thinker can have a single intentional state without having any others). What is wanted, then, is a reductive theory that "naturalizes" content by specifying sufficient conditions, in physicalistic and atomistic terms, for a mental symbol to represent or express a certain property. (shrink)
In 1985, after nearly a decade of inconclusive professional response to public concern about misconduct in research, Congress passed legislation requiring action. Subsequent to this legislation, federal agencies and research universities adopted policies for responding to allegations of misconduct in research. Conferences, sessions at professional meetings, and special publications were organized. New educational initiatives were begun, many in response to a 1989 National Institutes of Health/ Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration requirement to include ethics instruction in training grants. (...) Notwithstanding a few key unresolved issues, such as the lack of a uniform federal definition of misconduct in research, the years since 1985 have witnessed a marked change in the professional response to misconduct in research. This paper evaluates the change since 1985 from the perspective of three key goals: 1) confronting misconduct, 2) promoting integrity and 3) ensuring integrity. While significant progress has been made in achieving the first two goals, the third remains largely unaddressed. The latter is due to the fact that researchers have not been interested in studying the integrity of their own profession. It is therefore suggested that studies are needed of routine or normal research practices and their impact on integrity for use in making decisions about research conduct policy. (shrink)
Problem: The paper investigates some reasons why RC has not become a mainstream endeavor. Method: The central assumptions of RC are summarized. Analysis is made of how each of these assumptions corresponds to other views, especially to intuitive beliefs that are widely accepted. Is RC consistent with these beliefs, supported by them, or incompatible with them? Results: The construction hypothesis is supported by the results of cognitive science and neurophysiology. However, the closed-system hypothesis and antirealism are in conflict with deeply (...) rooted convictions of most people. Some ethical and educational aspects claimed by RC are generally accepted but they are not specifically implications of RC. Implications: In the near future, RC will probably not become the leading paradigm or a mainstream endeavor in the sciences or in philosophy. (shrink)
From an ethical standpoint, the goal of clinical research is to benefit patients. While individual investigations may not yield results that directly improve patients’ evaluation or treatment, the corpus of the research should lead in that direction. Without the goal of ultimate benefit to patients, such research fails as a moral enterprise. While this may seem obvious, the need to protect and benefit patients can get lost in the milieu of clinical research. Many advances in emergency medicine have been based (...) upon the results of research studies conducted both within the specialty and by others outside of the field. But has this research benefited patients? Has it followed the Hippocratic commitment “to do good or at least do no harm”? The answer is: yes, and no. This paper attempts to demonstrate this: first by citing advances from applied research that have benefited emergency department patients over the past three decades, and follows with some aspects of emergency medicine research that makes one question both its safety and its efficacy. While enormous gains have been made in patient care as a result of emergency medical research, ethical considerations complicate this rosy picture, and point to future areas of concern for researchers. (shrink)
Integrity is generally considered to be an important military virtue. The first part of this article tries to make sense of integrity’s many, often contradicting, meanings. Both in the military and elsewhere, its most common understanding seems to be that integrity requires us to live according to one’s personal principal values and principles we have a moral obligation to do so, and it is a prerequisite to be able to ‘look ourselves in the mirror.’ This notion of integrity as upholding (...) personal values and principles is a very problematic one in itself, especially to those working in the military. For several reasons, perhaps the role that the virtue of integrity has in a military organization could in fact be better played by other virtues. (shrink)
This is an account of the evolution of ideas and the confluence of support and vision that has eventuated in the founding of the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics (JERHRE). Many factors have contributed to the creation of this rather atypical academic journal, including a scientific and administrative culture that finally saw the need for it, modern electronic technology, individuals across the world who were committed to somehow finding common ground between researchers and those charged with ethical (...) oversight of research, a network of helpful colleagues, and a university whose administration gave moral support to the endeavor in a time of fiscal austerity. Perhaps equally important were the decisions to make JERHRE a nonprofit undertaking, to emphasize the implications of empirical research for specific best practices, to serve the educational needs of those concerned with human research, and to seek to stimulate the interest of students in gaining an evidence-based understanding of the research contexts in which they decide to work. This article explores the ‘chemistry’ that has made it possible to develop a somewhat unorthodox journal and set of related activities. (shrink)
Technology has provided state and federal governments with huge collections of DNA samples and identifying profiles stored in databanks. That information can be used to solve crimes by matching samples from convicted felons to unsolved crimes, and has aided law enforcement in investigating and convicting suspects, and exonerating innocent felons, even after lengthy incarceration. Rights surrounding the provision of DNA samples, however, remain unclear in light of the constitutional guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures and privacy concerns. The courts have (...) just begun to consider this issue, and have provided little guidance. It is unclear whether the laws governing protected health information are applicable to the instant situation, and if so, the degree to which they apply. DNA databanks are not uniformly regulated, and it is possible that DNA samples contained in them may be used for purposes unintended by donors of the samples. As people live their lives, they leave bits of their DNA behind. They cannot be assured that these tiny specimens will not be taken or used against their will or without their knowledge for activities such as profiling to measure tendencies such as thrill-seeking, aggressiveness, or crimes with threatening behavior. Existing racial or ethnic discrimination and profiling may also encompass genetic discrimination and profiling, creating societal class distinctions. This article will explore the constitutionality of collecting genetic materials, the ethics of such activities, and balance the social good in solving crime and deterrence against the individual's security, liberty, and privacy. (shrink)
In the first chapter of Confucius: The Secular as Sacred, Herbert Fingarette argues that in the Analects Confucius holds the essence of human virtue to be a kind of magic power and this magic can be explained in terms of J. L. Austin’s analysis of the “performative utterance.” This paper attempts to explicate what Fingarette’s claims concerning magic and the “performative” amount to. I will argue that even though there is something to the underlying spirit of Fingarette’s project, he either (...) misused or simply misunderstood Austin and, because of this misuse or misunderstanding, he has possibly misunderstood Confucius as well. (shrink)
Austin rejects the contention that every proposition has a contradictory. This paper finds problems with the case Austin makes for rejecting the contention in question.
Bernhard and Young (Journal of Academic Ethics, 7, 175-191, 2009) allege that a myth of confidentiality plagues research in North America because of the absence of statute-based legal protections and the requirements of some REBs to limit confidentiality to the extent permitted by law. In this commentary we describe statute-based protections for research confidentiality available in the United States, clarify the legal situation regarding research confidentiality in Canada, and explain that REBs that require confidentiality to be limited by law are (...) imposing a doctrine that is not required by the TCPS and may violate researchers’ academic freedom. The paper laments how excessive REB risk aversion and inaction by the granting agency Presidents has created a situation where some REBs are encouraging researchers to download research risks to research participants and forcing researchers to choose between exposing themselves to the prospect of going to jail to protect confidentiality, watering down their research objectives, or conducting vanilla research rather than engaging in controversial and/or sensitive areas of study. The paper urges the granting agency Presidents to seek legislative change to protect research participants who provide information that could cause them harm if their identity were to be revealed. (shrink)
Differing views on reduction are briefly reviewed and a suggestion is made for a working definition of 'approximate reduction'. Ab initio studies in quantum chemistry are then considered, including the issues of convergence and error bounds. This includes an examination of the classic studies on CH2 and the recent work on the Si2C molecule. I conclude that chemistry has not even been approximately reduced.
There is a growing trend in Australia to require lawyers to certify reasonable prospects of success for the cases they bring and defend. New South Wales has led the way with the Legal Profession Act 2004 (NSW) Pt 3.2 Division 10 requiring legal practitioners to certify reasonable prospects of success in all claims for damages. The requirement places a significant onus on lawyers to make a judgment about the merits of a case before it is begun, yet the common law (...) has long provided mechanisms to ensure that cases without prospects of success do not go to trial. This article considers Australian legislative provisions requiring lawyers to certify reasonable prospects of success of cases. It examines the application of the NSW legislation by the courts highlighting the difficulties of interpretation of what constitute 'reasonable prospects of success' and the application of the legislation in the context of the dynamic litigation process. It is argued that these legislated obligations on lawyers will have a detrimental effect on access to justice by denying parties, in particular plaintiffs, the opportunity to have their cases properly and fully determined in the courts. This article examines common law mechanisms for dissuading cases without prospects and argues that the general law is an effective system for ensuring that cases without prospects of success are not maintained. The Australian experience is instructive for consideration of optimal reform packages for the administration of justice and to evaluate the role of any litigation lawyer within the judicial and court process. (shrink)
The third section of the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals presents a particularly acute interpretative problem that has perplexed generations of Kant commentators. Having devoted the two preceding sections of the work to identifying the supreme principle of morality, Kant, in this section, turns to the task of justifying the principle for rational yet sensually affected beings like humans. However, in the middle of this famous “deduction,” he suddenly confesses that “there is a hidden circle” from which “there is (...) no escape.” Kant’s abrupt confession of the circle leaves the reader deeply puzzled, partly because Kant has so confidently presented his arguments for our subjection to the constraints of the supreme principle of morality up to that point, and partly because no clues are readily apparent as to what the mistake in the arguments might be. Where is the circle located? In this paper I tackle Kant’s problem of the hidden circle in the Foundations. In particular, I will identify and critically discuss three influential interpretations of the fallacy of circularity and offer an alternative reading of Kant’s way out of the problem. (shrink)
Vallortigara & Rogers's (V&R's) proposal that directional asymmetries evolved under social pressures raises questions about the ontogenetic mechanisms subserving the alignment of asymmetries in a population. Neuro-ontogenetic principles suggest that epigenetic factors are decisively involved in the determination of individual lateralization and that genetic factors align their direction. Clearly, directional asymmetry has an epigenetic trait.
Our long-standing hypothesis has been that feedforward information flow is sufficient for speech perception, reading, and sentence (syntactic and semantic) processing more generally. We are encouraged by the target article's argument for the same hypothesis, but caution that more precise quantitative predictions will be necessary to advance the field.
Post-9/11, concern about bioterrorism has transformed public health from unappreciated to a central component of national security. Within the War on Terror, bioterrorism preparedness has taken a back seat only to direct military action in terms of funding. Domestically, homelessness, joblessness, crime, education, and race relations are just a few of a litany of pressing issues requiring government attention. Even within the biomedical sciences and healthcare, issues surrounding the fact that more than 40 million Americans lack health insurance, the rising (...) cost of prescription medications, and the use of government funds for research using embryonic stem cells remain unresolved. Should we prioritize a hypothetical threat (bioterrorism), or existing conditions that have implications for identifiable individuals? Even more fundamentally, should we prioritize research aimed at defense from bioterrorism (or even terrorism in general) when there are so many pressing social problems that affect the U.S. population? (shrink)
In the norms of assertion literature there has been continued focus on a wide range of odd-sounding assertions that have been collected under the umbrella of Moore's Paradox. The precise nature of Moorean absurdity has long been a contested topic. Our aim in these brief remarks is not to attempt to settle that question decisively, but rather to present some new data bearing on it, and to argue that this new data is best explained by a new account of Moorean (...) absurdity. (shrink)
The paper asks about the reasons for the neglect of chemistry in modern philosophy of science and investigates in how far this science can be the object of an autonomous philosophical reflection. It is argued that from a culturalistic point of view chemistry indeed offers a field of interesting questions ranging from the reconstruction of its epistemological objects to the elucidation of the semantic functions of terms like "atom" or "molecule". It is further argued that the philosophical reflection upon chemistry (...) has important consequences for the didactic, the history and even the ethics of this science, making thus philosophy to a partner of chemistry in fulfilling its purposes in human society. (shrink)
Applied ethics is relatively new on the philosophical scene, having grown out of the various civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the student demand that college courses be relevant. Even today, there are those who think that there are no philosophically interesting practical ethical questions, and that applied ethics is not a branch of philosophy at all. This article rejects that view, both because some of the most interesting and respectable philosophers in the world have (...) worked in applied ethics and because applied ethics has been the source of many difficult conceptual questions in theoretical ethics and even metaphysics. These include the grounds for moral status, human identity, how to conceive rights in general and the right to life in particular, the question whether existence itself can be a harm (the nonidentity problem), and the nature of moral principles. (shrink)
The nature of reference, or the relation of a word to the object to which it refers, has been perhaps the dominant concern of twentieth-century analytic philosophy. Extremely influential arguments by Gottlob Frege around the turn of the century convinced the large majority of philosophers that the meaning of a word must be distinguished from its referent, the former only providing some kind of direction for reaching the latter. In the last twenty years, this Fregean orthodoxy has been vigorously challenged (...) by those who argue that certain important kinds of words, at least, refer directly without need of an intermediate meaning or sense. The essays in this volume record how a long-term study of Frege has persuaded the author that Frege's pivotal distinction between sense and reference, and his attendant philosophical views about language and thought, are unsatisfactory. Frege's perspective, he argues, imposes a distinctive way of thinking about semantics, specifically about the centrality of cognitive significance puzzles for semantics. Freed from Frege's perspective, we will no longer find it natural to think about semantics in this way. (shrink)
Abstract Following Hubert Dreyfus, this paper takes up the debate over the limits on what can be articulated by means of intentional analysis. Section 1 reviews the contrast between Husserl's position and Heidegger's position. Husserl's is an ?inexhaustibility theory? of the inarticulable, according to which, although it is in principle impossible to articulate everything, there is not anything that it is in principle impossible to articulate. Heidegger's is a genuine ?inarticulability?in?principle theory? of the inarticulable, according to which it is, in (...) principle, impossible to articulate the whole of what makes human understanding possible. On this view, it is, in principle, impossible to articulate the background of skills and practices presupposed by and taken for granted in all our everyday human activities. Whereas Dreyfus has been largely interested in this debate for the sake of its parallels to developments in cognitive science, this paper aims, in Section 2, to consider the political importance of this debate. It is argued that the debate between the inexhaustibility theorist and the inarticulability theorist is misdirected. The two sides in this debate share a pair of questionable assumptions, which lead them to treat the problem of the inarticulable as though the participants in the practices that constitute the ?taken?for?granted background of everyday understanding? are all situated in equivalent positions in those practices. But the everyday phenomena of ostracism and marginalization show that there are political and social concerns that must be addressed as part of the study of constituting practices. ?Who gets to articulate what, and to whom?? is a question that should be asked before ?Is there anything that cannot be articulated?? (shrink)
I review and appraise Eugene C. Hargrove’s account of the adverse impacts of Western philosophy on attitudes to the environment. Although significant qualifications have to be entered, for there are grounds to hold that philosophical traditions which have encouraged taking nature seriously are not always given their due by Hargrove, and that environmental thought can draw upon deeper roots than he allows, his verdict that the history of philosophy has discouraged preservationist attitudes is substantially correct. Environmental philosophy thus has a (...) significant (if not quite an unrivalled) role to play in the reconstruction of many of the traditional branches of philosophy, as weIl as in the protection of the natural world. (shrink)
Gene targeting has generated a great deal of data on the molecular mechanisms of long-term potentiation and its potential role in learning and memory. However, the interpretation of some results has been questioned. Compensatory mechanisms and the contribution of genetic background may make it difficult to unequivocally prove the existence of a causal (genetic) link between LTP and learning.
Stuart Kauffman: Steve is extremely bright, inventive. He thoroughly understands paleontology; he thoroughly understands evolutionary biology. He has performed an enormous service in getting people to think about punctuated equilibrium, because you see the process of stasis/sudden change, which is a puzzle. It's the cessation of change for long periods of time. Since you always have mutations, why don't things continue changing? You either have to say that the particular form is highly adapted, optimal, and exists in a stable environment, (...) or you have to be very puzzled. Steve has been enormously important in that sense. (shrink)
Cholak, Goncharov, Khoussainov, and Shore [1] showed that for each k > 0 there is a computably categorical structure whose expansion by a constant has computable dimension k. We show that the same is true with k replaced by ω. Our proof uses a version of Goncharov's method of left and right operations.
When children gradually leave theirparental home and the educational task of theirparents is nearly finished, the relationshipbetween them changes. The nature of the closerelationship comes under pressure, and thequestion is whether what is awaited for willnot be hollow. To think about the character andorigin of this emptiness, leads to a reflectionof the essence of the educational relationshipitself. This article discusses the way in which``leaving home'' puts the relationship betweenand the identities of parent and child atstake. It furthermore describes the kind (...) ofregret both partners experience, and arguesthat education is incomprehensible in the end.Coming to understand this has an important andpositive other side: it demands our attentionfor the unforeseen and explains through thisperhaps also partly its attractiveness. (shrink)
Let us call an integer part of an ordered field any subring such that every element of the field lies at distance less than 1 from a unique element of the ring. We show that every real closed field has an integer part.
The last decade has been one of upheaval for the U.S. banking industry. Richard M. Salsman's Breaking the Banks, though not flawless, offers a well?framed theoretical and historical account that goes beneath proximate causes to the underlying sources of unsoundness among American banks. Salsman's diagnosis?that regulation has systematically weakened the banking industry?is all the more credible for having been published a year before it became publicly known that the FDIC had gone broke.
We show that it is consistent with ZFC (relative to large cardinals) that every infinite Boolean algebra B has an irredundant subset A such that 2 |A| = 2 |B| . This implies in particular that B has 2 |B| subalgebras. We also discuss some more general problems about subalgebras and free subsets of an algebra. The result on the number of subalgebras in a Boolean algebra solves a question of Monk from [6]. The paper is intended to be accessible (...) as far as possible to a general audience, in particular we have confined the more technical material to a "black box" at the end. The proof involves a variation on Foreman and Woodin's model in which GCH fails everywhere. (shrink)
In this paper a unified framework for dealing with a broad family of propositional multimodal logics is developed. The key tools for presentation of the logics are the notions of closure relation operation and monotonous relation operation. The two classes of logics: FiRe-logics (finitely reducible logics) and LaFiRe-logics (FiRe-logics with local agreement of accessibility relations) are introduced within the proposed framework. Further classes of logics can be handled indirectly by means of suitable translations. It is shown that the logics from (...) these classes have the finite model property with respect to the class of -formulae, i.e. each -formula has a -model iff it has a finite -model. Roughly speaking, a -formula is logically equivalent to a formula in negative normal form without occurrences of modal operators with necessity force. In the proof we introduce a substantial modification of Claudio Cerrato's filtration technique that has been originally designed for graded modal logics. The main core of the proof consists in building adequate restrictions of models while preserving the semantics of the operators used to build terms indexing the modal operators. (shrink)
Just below the surface of public life in the United States, a biblically based theory of rights vies with a theory that first appeared in the work of Bentham and Mill, and the latter is gaining increasing dominance. The resolution of this conflict has implications for a host of legal matters and public policy decisions, including life and death issues like physician-assisted suicide. Though the ascendancy of the Millian tradition reflects widespread skepticism concerning the possibility of developing a basis for (...) a common morality or defending a conception of natural inalienable rights, the author argues that a plausible account of common human morality can be developed from attention to the relationships that are requisite for sustaining the communities that are the condition of moral agency. (shrink)
The search for an answer to the question that constitutes the title has led to some insightful results concerning Kurt Gödel’s critical reception of major philosophical works. It shows how he uses philosophical argumentations of classical authors and turns them into new aspects for his own philosophical argumentation. In the case at hand a classical argument by Aristotle for the immaterialness of the soul is used by Gödel in order to add considerations to his own reasoning for the inexhaustibility of (...) mathematics, the mind-body-problem and his considerations about God; and vice versa to give new insights into an argument with a long history of reception. (shrink)
"According to informational semantics, if it's necessary that a creature can't distinguish Xs from Ys, it follows that the creature can't have a concept that applies to Xs but not Ys." (Jerry Fodor, The Elm and the Expert, p.32).
In the sixth chapter of The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel attempts to identify a form of idealism. The position that he deems idealist is that what there is must be possibly conceivable by us. Nagel claims that this position is held by a number of contemporary philosophers. Even if this is so, I justify the view that it is not a form of idealism.
These questions are addressed in this volume by leading mathematical logicians and philosophers of mathematics.A special section is concerned with constructive ...
onl y to discuss some claims concerning the relationship between mathematical logic and the philosophy of mathematics that repeatedly occur in his writings. Although I do not know to what extent they are representative of his present position, they correspond to widespread views of the logical community and so seem worth discussing anyhow. Such claims will be used as reference to make some remarks about the present state of relations between mathematical logic and the philosophy of mathematics.
At least since Russell’s influential discussion in The Principles of Mathematics, many philosophers have held there is a problem that they call the problem of the unity of the proposition. In a recent paper, I argued that there is no single problem that alone deserves the epithet the problem of the unity of the proposition. I there distinguished three problems or questions, each of which had some right to be called a problem regarding the unity of the proposition; and I (...) showed how the account of propositions formulated in my book The Nature and Structure of Content [2007 Oxford University Press] solves each of these problems. In the present paper, I take up two of these problems/questions yet again. For I want to consider other accounts of propositions and compare their solutions to these problems, or lack thereof, to mine. I argue that my account provides the best solutions to the unity problems. (shrink)
A common objection to Russell's theory of descriptions concerns incomplete definite descriptions: uses of (for example) ‘the book is overdue’ in contexts where there is clearly more than one book. Many contemporary Russellians hold that such utterances will invariably convey a contextually determined complete proposition, for example, that the book in your briefcase is overdue. But according to the objection this gets things wrong: typically, when a speaker utters such a sentence, no facts about the context or the speaker's communicative (...) intentions single out a particular description-theoretic proposition as the proposition expressed. However, this is an objection only if it is assumed that successful linguistic communication requires the hearer to identify a proposition uniquely intended by the speaker. We argue that this assumption is mistaken. On our view, no proposition, descriptive or referential, is uniquely intended in such a context; thus, no proposition can nor need be identified as the proposition expressed. One significant upshot is that, once the aforementioned assumption is rejected, incompleteness no longer poses a threat to Russell's theory of descriptions. (shrink)
In ANARCY, STATE AND UTOPIA Robert Nozick says that the fundamental question of political philosophy, one that precedes questions about how the state should be organized, is whether there should be any state at all. In the first part of his book he attempts to justify the state. We argue that he is not successful.
On a subject that hath been so often treated, ’tis impossible to avoid saying many things which have been said before. It may, however, with reason be affirmed, that there still remains, on this subject, great scope for new observations. Besides, it ought to be remember’d, that the evidence of any complex argument depends very much on the order into which the material circumstances are digested, and the manner in which they are display’d.
My aim in this article is to argue that Philippa Foot fails to provide a convincing basis for moral evaluation in her book Natural Goodness. Foot’s proposal fails because her conception of natural goodness and defect in human beings either sanctions prescriptive claims that are clearly objectionable or else it inadvertently begs the question of what constitutes a good human life by tacitly appealing to an independent ethical standpoint to sanitize the theory’s normative implications. Foot’s appeal to natural facts about (...) human goodness is in this way singled out as an Achilles’ heel that undermines her attempt to establish an independent framework for virtue ethics. This problem might seem to be one that is uniquely applicable to the bold naturalism of Foot’s methodology; however, I claim that the problem is indicative of a more general problem for all contemporary articulations of virtue ethics.Je soutiens dans cet article que, dans son livre, Natural Goodness, Philippa Foot ne parvient pas à fournir de fondement convainquant à l’evaluation morale. Son argumentation échoue parce que sa conception des qualités et des défauts naturels, soit sanctionne des jugements prescriptifs qui sont manifestement susceptibles d’étre rejetés, soit commet par mégarde une pétition de principe en définissant ce qu’est la bonne vie morale au moyen d’une référence implicite à un point de vue éthique indépendant servant à assainir les implications normatives de la théorie en question. L’utilisation que Foot fait des données de la nature sur l’excellence humaine est ainsi identifi’e comme le talon d’Achille de sa théorie qui ruine sa tentative d’établir un cadre indépendant pour l’éthique de la vertu. Ce problème pourrait paraître concerner uniquement la méthodologie de Foot et son naturalisme radical. J’affirme cependant qu’il est le signe d’un problème plus general pour toutes les formulationscontemporaines de l’éthique de la vertu. (shrink)
In the present article, the role of Gestalt concepts in clarifying the issues of perception is evaluated. Grounded in anti-atomism, Gestalt assumed organizing forces intrinsic to perception. Insofar these were identified with singularity preference, Gestalt is criticized for having failed to distinguish between perception and thought.
I examine whether or not it is apt to attribute knowledge to groups of scientists. I argue that though research teams can be aptly described as having knowledge, communities of scientists identified with research fields, and the scientific community as a whole are not capable of knowing. Scientists involved in research teams are dependent on each other, and are organized in a manner to advance a goal. Such teams also adopt views that may not be identical to the views of (...) the individual members of the group. (shrink)
