There has been very little discussion of the appropriate principles to govern a modal logic of plurals. What debate there has been has accepted a principle I call (Necinc); informally if this is one of those then, necessarily: this is one of those. On this basis Williamson has criticised the Boolosian plural interpretation of monadic second-order logic. I argue against (Necinc), noting that it isn't a theorem of any logic resulting from adding modal axioms to the plural logic PFO+, and (...) showing that the most obvious formal argument in its favour is question begging. I go on to discuss the behaviour of natural language plurals, motivating a case against (Necinc) by developing a case that natural language plural terms are not de jure rigid designators. The paper concludes by developing a model theory for modal PFO-f which does not validate (Necinc). An Appendix discusses (Necinc) in relation to counterpart theory. Of course, it would be a mistake to think that the rules for "multiple pointing" follow automatically from the rules for pointing proper. Max Black—The Elusiveness of Sets In some influential articles during the 1980s George Boolos proposed an interpretation of monadic second-order logic in terms of plural quantification [4, 5]. One objection to this proposal, pressed by Williamson [22, 456-7], focuses on the modal behaviour of plural variables, arguing that the proposed interpretation yields the wrong results in respect of the modal status of atomic predications. In the present paper I will present this objection and argue against it. In the course of developing the argument, I will have cause to consider the under-investigated question of how a logic for plurals should be extended to incorporate modal operators. (shrink)

This paper raises the question under what circumstances a plurality forms a set, parallel to the Special Composition Question for mereology. The range of answers that have been proposed in the literature are surveyed and criticised. I argue that there is good reason to reject both the view that pluralities never form sets and the view that pluralities always form sets. Instead, we need to affirm restricted set formation. Casting doubt on the availability of any informative principle which will settle (...) which pluralities form sets, the paper concludes by affirming a naturalistic approach to the philosophy of set theory. (shrink)

This book is the first treatment at length of negative, or apophatic, theology within the analytic tradition. Apophatic theology holds that there is a significant sense in which we cannot say what God is. Important negative theological elements are present in a host of Christian thinkers, from Gregory of Nyssa to Aquinas, and yet apophaticism is neglected in philosophical theology as practiced within the analytic tradition. By contrast, Hewitt shows how apophatic theology is integral to how Christians have thought (...) about God, and how it can be defended against standard attacks in the philosophical literature. Hewitt diagnoses the unease with apophaticism amongst contempory philosophical theologicans as rooted in a certain picture of how language functions, here called referentialism. Arguing that this picture is not compulsory, an account of language which sits more comfortably with negative theology (originating from work of later Wittgenstein) is invoked, and applied to key themes in philosophical theology including divine personhood, the Trinity, the Incarnation and the afterlife. (shrink)

This paper develops a formal system, consisting of a language and semantics, called serial logic ( SL ). In rough outline, SL permits quantification over, and reference to, some finite number of things in an order , in an ordinary everyday sense of the word “order,” and superplural quantification over things thus ordered. Before we discuss SL itself, some mention should be made of an issue in philosophical logic which provides the background to the development of SL , and with (...) respect to which I wish to contend that the system permits progress. (shrink)

This paper transforms a development of an argument against pantheism into an objection to the usual account of God within contemporary analytic philosophy. A standard criticism of pantheism has it that pantheists cannot offer a satisfactory account of God as personal. My paper will develop this criticism along two lines: first, that personhood requires contentful mental states, which in turn necessitate the membership of a linguistic community, and second that personhood requires limitation within a wider context constitutive of the ’setting’ (...) of the agent’s life. Pantheism can, I argue, satisfy neither criterion of personhood. At this point the tables are turned on the Swinburnian theist. If the pantheist cannot defend herself against the personhood-based attacks, neither can the Swinburnian, and for instructively parallel reasons: for neither doctrine is God in the material world; in the pantheist case God is identical with the world, in the Swinburnian case God transcends it. Either way both the pantheist and the Swinburnian are left with a dilemma: abandon divine personhood or modify the doctrine of God so as to block the move to personhood. (shrink)

We note that a plural version of logicism about arithmetic is suggested by the standard reading of Hume's Principle in terms of `the number of Fs/Gs'. We lay out the resources needed to prove a version of Frege's principle in plural, rather than second-order, logic. We sketch a proof of the theorem and comment philosophically on the result, which sits well with a metaphysics of natural numbers as plural properties.

ABSTRACT Classical and intuitionistic logic both validate Ex Contradictione Quodlibet, according to which any proposition whatsoever follows from a contradiction. Many philosophers have found ECQ counter-intuitive, but criticisms of the principle have almost universally been directed from a position of support for relevance or other orthodox paraconsistent logics, according to which some, but not necessarily all, propositions follow from a contradiction. This paper draws attention to the historically significant view that nothing whatsoever follows from a contradiction – Ex Contradictione Nihil. (...) It addresses the key arguments – model-theoretic, proof-theoretic, meaning theoretic and holist – deployed by proponents of ECQ against their standard opponents, and shows that each can be defeated from a position of support for ECN. In the course of answering these arguments, some understanding is developed of possible motivations for ECN and a solid case is built that ECN deserves further investigation. (shrink)

We can introduce singular terms for ordered pairs by means of an abstraction principle. Doing so proves useful for a number of projects in the philosophy of mathematics. However there is a question whether we can appeal to the abstraction principle in good faith, since a version of the Caesar Problem can be generated, posing the worry that abstraction fails to introduce expressions which refer determinately to the requisite sort of object. In this note I will pose the difficulty, and (...) then propose a solution. Since my solution appeals to a plausible constraint on the introduction of new expressions to a language, it is of interest independently of the particular case of terms for pairs. Since these provide the occasion for discussion we should nonetheless review the use of abstraction for pairs before the argumentative business of the paper commences. (shrink)

We can introduce singular terms for ordered pairs by means of an abstraction principle. Doing so proves useful for a number of projects in the philosophy of mathematics. However there is a question whether we can appeal to the abstraction principle in good faith, since a version of the Caesar Problem can be generated, posing the worry that abstraction fails to introduce expressions which refer determinately to the requisite sort of object. In this short paper I will pose the difficulty, (...) and then propose a solution. (shrink)

A version of Frege's theorem can be proved in a plural logic with pair abstraction. We talk through this and discuss the philosophical implications of the result.

Michael Dummett offered a semantic characterisation of a variety of realism-antirealism debates. This approach has fallen out of fashion. This has been to the detriment of metaphysics. This paper offers an accurate characterisation of Dummett’s view, often lacking in the literature, and then defends it against a range of attacks (from Devitt, Miller and Williamson). This understanding of realism debates is resilient, and if we take it seriously the philosophical terrain looks importantly different. In particular, the philosophy of language has (...) a foundational role with respect to metaphysics. (shrink)

There is no interesting entailment either way between theism and various forms of realism. Taking its cue from Dummett's characterisation of realism and his discussion of it with respect to theistic belief, this paper argues both that theism does not follow from realism, and that God cannot be appealed to in order to secure bivalence for an otherwise indeterminate subject matter. In both cases, significant appeal is made to the position that God is not a language user, which in turn (...) is motivated by an account of understanding as aptitude possession. The resulting picture sits comfortably with the apophatism common within living religious traditions and with the view that the philosophy of religion ought to reorientate itself away from metaphysics towards more practical questions. (shrink)

An important trend in contemporary metaphysics denies that the structure of natural language is an important datum for investigating fundamental structure. Ted Sider proceeds on this basis to propose a metaphysical semantics for natural language. Within this framework he argues that natural language and a fundamental, ‘jointcarving’, language could be subject to distinct logics. Developing an argument of Hartry Field’s, I show that Sider’s preferred option of fundamental classicality combined with non-fundamental non-classicality trivialises within the framework of Siderian metaphysical semantics. (...) The position can be saved only by revising key claims about truth and metaphysical semantics. This has serious implications for methdology in the metaphysics of logic. (shrink)

It is often assumed that pluralities are rigid, in the sense of having all and only their actual members necessarily. This assumption is operative in standard approaches to modal plural logic. I argue that a sceptical approach towards the assumption is warranted.

ABSTRACTThe doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist presents a particular challenge to its defenders: how is it so much as intelligible? This paper explores Dummett’s response to this question, centred on the notion of deeming. Whilst instructive, Dummett’s position is unsustainable as it stands, since it fails to secure the meaningfulness of the doctrine. Once deeming is brought together with an account of bodiliness and an appreciation of the nature of the Eucharist as a meal, however, (...) the way is open to demonstrating the intelligibility of the doctrine. This is a prerequisite even for its rejection as false. (shrink)

There is no interesting entailment either way between theism and various forms of realism. Taking its cue from Dummett’s characterisation of realism and his discussion of it with respect to theistic belief, this paper argues both that theism does not follow from realism, and that God cannot be appealed to in order to secure bivalence for an otherwise indeterminate subject matter. In both cases, significant appeal is made to the position that God is not a language user, which in turn (...) is motivated by an account of understanding as aptitude possession. The resulting picture sits comfortably with the apophatism common within living religious traditions and with the view that the philosophy of religion ought to reorientate itself away from metaphysics towards more practical questions. (shrink)

Permissivist metaontology proposes answering customary existence questions in the affirmative. Many of the existence questions addressed by ontologists concern the existence of theoretical entities which admit precise formal specification. This causes trouble for the permissivist, since individually consistent formal theories can make pairwise inconsistent demands on the cardinality of the universe. We deploy a result of Gabriel Uzquiano’s to show that this possibility is realised in the case of two prominent existence debates and propose rejecting permissivism in favour of substantive (...) ontology conducted on a cost–benefit basis. (shrink)

It is argued that Gabriel Uzquiano's approach to set-theoretic indefinite extensibility is a version of in rebus structuralism, and therefore suffers from a vacuity problem.

Aquinas's thoughts about the human soul present us with a puzzle. On the one hand, Thomas has been applauded within the analytic tradition as an anti-dualistic thinker, who emphasises the animal nature of human beings and denies that there could be disembodied human persons. Yet on the other hand he holds, as a faithful Catholic theologian, that the human soul survives death, and maintains that the post-mortem soul, prior to its reunification with the body is the subject of characteristically personal (...) intellectual activities. This paper reviews the state of the debate regarding whether these commitments of Aquinas's can be reconciled, and concludes that they cannot in his own terms. However, a recognisably thomist approach to the post-mortem survival of the soul is available, proceeding on the basis that to be rationally ensouled is to have a life-story. (shrink)

Personhood theism is the view that God exists and is a person. It is often claimed that, whatever conclusions might be reached abstractly by philosophers and theologians, Christianity as lived out practically embodies belief in personhood theism. In this article, I critically examine this claim and argue that Christian prayer and liturgical practice does not in fact embody this belief and that the claim that it does begs the questions against the non-personhood theist.

CraigWilliam Lane.* * God andObjects – The Coherence of Theism : Aseity.Springer, 2017. ISBN: 978-3-319-55383-2 ; 978-3-319-55384-9. Pp. xv + 540.

New Blackfriars, Volume 102, Issue 1101, Page 815-833, September 2021.

It is common for contemporary ontologists to claim that they are not concerned with what exists simpliciter, but rather with what exists ’fundamentally’, or what ’really’ exists. I argue that positions of this sort cannot satisfy reasonable constraints concerning the acquisition of language. I assess and dismiss possible responses to this complaint before commenting on the prospects for a metaphysics without bespoke existence claims.

Herbert McCabe was, by widespread acclaim, one of the greatest Catholic thinkers in the English speaking world during the final quarter of the last century. He was also deeply committed to radical left‐wing politics. What is the relationship between these two facts? I lay out what I take to be the key themes in McCabe's politics before arguing that, in contrast to significant strands in present day political theology, he had a keen sense of the respective roles of faith and (...) reason in guiding political action. This allowed him to commit himself to a politics which was more radical than much of what has followed him, whilst having a clear sense of how Christian faith ought to be allowed to condition political engagement. The article concludes by drawing out lessons from McCabe for thinking about faith and politics. Not least of these is that we ought to avoid the lure, often articulated in terms of the ‘unifying’ role of the Church, to eschew conflict. (shrink)

Negation, denial and falsity lie at the heart of debates about logic. We set out the classical account of the relationship between negation and denial, owing to Frege and Geach. We then challenge this on the basis that it does not permit an adequate account of falsity. A dialetheic alternative is minuted and criticised before a novel rejectivist account is proposed according to which falsity is the aim of the speech‐act of denial, whilst negation embeds deniability into assertoric contexts.

On the face of it Aquinas stands in the mainstream of Western mystical theology, and in particular is a noteworthy proponent of negative theology. This view, however, is challenged within anglophone philosophical theology. The clearest attack on the view that Aquinas is an apophatic theologian is to be found in Eleonore Stump's Aquinas. This paper lays out Stump's reasons for reading Aquinas as non-apophatic, and shows that they are not convincing. Aquinas, it concludes, meant what he said when he claimed (...) that we do not know what God is. (shrink)

"In order to write" said Simone de Beauvoir, "the first essential condition is that reality can no longer be taken for granted." She and four other French women writers of the second half of the twentieth century—Nathalie Sarraute, Marguerite Duras, Monique Wittig, and Maryse Condé—illustrate that producing autobiography is like performing a tightrope act on the slippery line between fact and fiction. Autobiographical Tightropes emphasizes the tension in the works of these major writers as they move in and out of (...) "experience" and "literature," violating the neat boundaries between genres and confusing the distinctions between remembering and creating. Focusing on selected works, Leah D. Hewitt for the first time anywhere explores the connections among the authors. In doing so she shows how contemporary women's autobiography in France links with feminist issues, literary tradition and trends, and postmodern theories of writing. In light of these theories Hewitt offers a new reading of de Beauvoir's memoirs and reveals how her attempt to represent the past faithfully is undone by irony, by literary and "feminine" detours. Other analysts of Nathalie Sarraute's writing have dwelt mainly on formal considerations of the New Novel, but Hewitt exposes a repressed, forbidden feminine aspect in her literary innovations. Unlike Sarraute, Duras cannot be connected with just one literary movement, political stance, style, or kind of feminism because her writing, largely autobiographical, is marked by chameleon like transformations. The chapters on Wittig and Condé show how, within the bounds of feminism, lesbians and women of color challenge the individualistic premises of autobiography. Hewitt demonstrates that, despite vast differences among these five writers, all of them reveal in their autobiographical works the self's need of a fictive other. (shrink)

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a defining figure of the twentieth century; a philosopher, Christian, resistance fighter, anarchist, feminist, labor activist and teacher. She was described by T. S. Eliot as "a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints," and by Albert Camus as "the only great spirit of our time." Originally published posthumously in two volumes, these newly reissued notebooks, are among the very few unedited personal writings of Weil's that still survive today. (...) Containing her thoughts on art, love, science, God and the meaning of life, they give context and meaning to Weil's famous works, revealing a unique philosophy in development and offering a rare private glimpse of her singular personality. (shrink)

Simone Weil is one of the most profound thinkers of the twentieth century. Her writings encompass an extraordinary breadth of subjects, including philosophy, religion, sociology, and politics. A political activist and resistance fighter, her accomplishments are even more astonishing in light of her death in 1943 at the age of thirty-four. Whilst Weil was concerned with deep philosophical questions - the nature of human thought and human faculties, the limits of language, and thought's contact with reality through mediation, science and (...) beauty - the full significance of her work has frequently been obscured by her categorization as a purely religious writer or Christian mystic. Simone Weil: Basic Writings is an expertly edited anthology of her most important writings, presenting Weil's philosophy as it relates to politics, the nature of work, human nature in its duality, necessity, beauty and goodness. D. K. Levy and Marina Barabas have translated all the extracts anew, including translations of important notes and references missing from existing English language editions of Weil's work. Following an extensive introduction by D. K. Levy which places Weil's life and thought in context, each section opens with a short introduction situating the chosen passages within Weil's oeuvre. Simone Weil: Basic Writings is an outstanding starting point for anyone seeking an introduction to Weil's philosophy, and also essential reading for students and scholars of Weil's thought in related disciplines. (shrink)

Into wrestling with that question, Simone Weil put the very substance of her mind and temperament.

"What is required if men and women are to feel at home in society and are to recover their vitality? Into wrestling with that question, Simone Weil put the very substance of her mind and temperament. The apparently solid edifices of our prepossessions fall down before her onslaught like ninepins, and she is as fertile and forthright in her positive suggestions . . . she can be relied upon to toss aside the superficial and to come to grips with the (...) essential and the profound." -- Time Literary Supplement. (shrink)

Gravity and Grace was the first ever publication by the remarkable thinker and activist, Simone Weil. In it Gustave Thibon, the priest to whom she had entrusted her notebooks before her untimely death, compiled in one remarkable volume a compendium of her writings that have become a source of spiritual guidance and wisdom for countless individuals.

Simone Weil's Leçons de Philosophie are derived from a course she taught at the lyce;e for girls at Roanne in 1933-4. Anne Reynaud-Gue;rithault was a pupil in the class; her notes are not a verbatim record but are a very full and, as far as one can judge, faithful rendering, often catching the unmistakable tone of Simone Weil's voice as well as the force and the directness of her thought. The lectures form a good general introduction to philosophy, ranging widely (...) over problems about perception, mind, language, reasoning and problems in moral and political philosophy too. Her method of presentation is a characteristic combination of abstract argument, personal experience and literary or historical reference. Peter Winch points out in his introduction to the book some of the more systematic connections in her philosophical work (and between this philosophical work and her other concerns), and makes a number of suggestive comparisons between Simone Weil and Wittgenstein. The translation is by Hugh Price from the Plon edition of 1959. Dr Price has added some notes to explain references in the text that might be unfamiliar to English speaking students beginning philosophy. (shrink)

自史蒂芬·霍金(Stephen Hawking) 的暢銷科普著作《時間簡史》(以下簡稱《簡史》) 在上世紀八十年代末問世以來，至今天二十一世紀，華人基督教界就他宇宙無起點的論述仍有相當之評論，但可惜對評論未有綜合分析。評論者因寫作目的，也甚少交代霍金宇宙學的來龍去脈。故本文嘗試略述霍金宇宙學的歷史 背景及發展經過，繼而舉出華人基督教界的評論，帶出其獨特性，並提出商確的地方，以反省未來可行路向。.

This thesis defends egalitarianism about knowledge and belief, on which neither is understood in terms of the other, from what I call the abductive argument. This argument is meant to favour views opposed to egalitarianism: doxasticism, on which knowledge is understood in terms of belief, and epistemicism, on which belief is understood in terms of knowledge. The abductive argument turns on the idea that doxasticism and epistemicism, by contrast with egalitarianism, explain certain data about knowledge and belief. I argue, however, (...) that no versions of doxasticism and epistemicism currently on offer are preferable to egalitarianism on abductive grounds. As part of my argument, I also defend the claim that knowledge, by contrast with belief, is an attitude to a fact and explore the implications of this claim for doxasticism and epistemicism. (shrink)

In Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks , Simone Weil discusses precursors to Christian religious ideas which can be found in ancient Greek mythology, literature and philosophy. She looks at evidence of "Christian" feelings in Greek literature, notably in Electra, Orestes, and Antigone , and in the Iliad , going on to examine God in Plato, and divine love in creation, as seen by the ancient Greeks.

This essay follows recent work in environmental history to explore the history of recycling in physical sciences in Britain and North America since the seventeenth century. The term ‘recycling’ is here used broadly to refer to a variety of practices that extended the life of material resources for doing science in the early modern period. These included practices associated with maintenance, repair, exchange and the adaptation or reuse of material culture. The essay argues that such practices were common in early (...) modern science, and informed experimental spaces and techniques and the ideas that they generated. The essay considers some of the varied motivations that led to such practices, and concludes by examining the endurance of recycling in science since the end of the eighteenth century, particularly in recent efforts to create sustainable scientific research practices. (shrink)

UK blood services, supported by the Health Protection Agency/Health Protection Scotland, carried out an exercise over the summer of 2005 to notify 110 donors whose blood was transfused to three recipients who later developed vCJD. These donors were to be informed that they were now considered 'at risk of vCJD for public health purposes'. The notification began on 20 July 2005 and was completed (barring follow-up) at the end of the first week of October 2005. Apart from two donors who (...) had died, contact was attempted with all donors, including four who were not currently registered with a GP. The lessons learnt about the conduct of such notification have been reviewed. The limited ad hoc feedback available suggests the process and content of this notification was acceptable to donors and their GPs. (shrink)