Girolamo Saccheri (1667--1733) was an Italian Jesuit priest, scholastic philosopher, and mathematician. He earned a permanent place in the history of mathematics by discovering and rigorously deducing an elaborate chain of consequences of an axiom-set for what is now known as hyperbolic (or Lobachevskian) plane geometry. Reviewer's remarks: (1) On two pages of this book Saccheri refers to his previous and equally original book Logica demonstrativa (Turin, 1697) to which 14 of the 16 pages of the editor's "Introduction" are (...) devoted. At the time of the first edition, 1920, the editor was apparently not acquainted with the secondary literature on Logica demonstrativa which continued to grow in the period preceding the second edition \ref[see D. J. Struik, in Dictionary of scientific biography, Vol. 12, 55--57, Scribner's, New York, 1975]. Of special interest in this connection is a series of three articles by A. F. Emch [Scripta Math. 3 (1935), 51--60; Zbl 10, 386; ibid. 3 (1935), 143--152; Zbl 11, 193; ibid. 3 (1935), 221--333; Zbl 12, 98]. (2) It seems curious that modern writers believe that demonstration of the "nondeducibility" of the parallel postulate vindicates Euclid whereas at first Saccheri seems to have thought that demonstration of its "deducibility" is what would vindicate Euclid. Saccheri is perfectly clear in his commitment to the ancient (and now discredited) view that it is wrong to take as an "axiom" a proposition which is not a "primal verity", which is not "known through itself". So it would seem that Saccheri should think that he was convicting Euclid of error by deducing the parallel postulate. The resolution of this confusion is that Saccheri thought that he had proved, not merely that the parallel postulate was true, but that it was a "primal verity" and, thus, that Euclid was correct in taking it as an "axiom". As implausible as this claim about Saccheri may seem, the passage on p. 237, lines 3--15, seems to admit of no other interpretation. Indeed, Emch takes it this way. (3) As has been noted by many others, Saccheri was fascinated, if not obsessed, by what may be called "reflexive indirect deductions", indirect deductions which show that a conclusion follows from given premises by a chain of reasoning beginning with the given premises augmented by the denial of the desired conclusion and ending with the conclusion itself. It is obvious, of course, that this is simply a species of ordinary indirect deduction; a conclusion follows from given premises if a contradiction is deducible from those given premises augmented by the denial of the conclusion---and it is immaterial whether the contradiction involves one of the premises, the denial of the conclusion, or even, as often happens, intermediate propositions distinct from the given premises and the denial of the conclusion. Saccheri seemed to think that a proposition proved in this way was deduced from its own denial and, thus, that its denial was self-contradictory (p. 207). Inference from this mistake to the idea that propositions proved in this way are "primal verities" would involve yet another confusion. The reviewer gratefully acknowledges extensive communication with his former doctoral students J. Gasser and M. Scanlan. ADDED 14 March 14, 2015: (1) Wikipedia reports that many of Saccheri's ideas have a precedent in the 11th Century Persian polymath Omar Khayyám's Discussion of Difficulties in Euclid, a fact ignored in most Western sources until recently. It is unclear whether Saccheri had access to this work in translation, or developed his ideas independently. (2) This book is another exemplification of the huge difference between indirect deduction and indirect reduction. Indirect deduction requires making an assumption that is inconsistent with the premises previously adopted. This means that the reasoner must perform a certain mental act of assuming a certain proposition. It case the premises are all known truths, indirect deduction—which would then be indirect proof—requires the reasoner to assume a falsehood. This fact has been noted by several prominent mathematicians including Hardy, Hilbert, and Tarski. Indirect reduction requires no new assumption. Indirect reduction is simply a transformation of an argument in one form into another argument in a different form. In an indirect reduction one proposition in the old premise set is replaced by the contradictory opposite of the old conclusion and the new conclusion becomes the contradictory opposite of the replaced premise. Roughly and schematically, P,Q/R becomes P,~R/~Q or ~R, Q/~P. Saccheri’s work involved indirect deduction not indirect reduction. (3) The distinction between indirect deduction and indirect reduction has largely slipped through the cracks, the cracks between medieval-oriented logic and modern-oriented logic. The medievalists have a heavy investment in reduction and, though they have heard of deduction, they think that deduction is a form of reduction, or vice versa, or in some cases they think that the word ‘deduction’ is the modern way of referring to reduction. The modernists have no interest in reduction, i.e. in the process of transforming one argument into another having exactly the same number of premises. Modern logicians, like Aristotle, are concerned with deducing a single proposition from a set of propositions. Some focus on deducing a single proposition from the null set—something difficult to relate to reduction. (shrink)

Processo e morte di Girolamo Savonarola -- Processo e morte di Giordano Bruno -- Avvertenza [bibliografia] (p. 105).

Since its publication in 1959, Individuals has become a modern philosophical classic. Bold in scope and ambition, it continues to influence debates in metaphysics, philosophy of logic and language, and epistemology. Peter Strawson's most famous work, it sets out to describe nothing less than the basic subject matter of our thought. It contains Strawson's now famous argument for descriptive metaphysics and his repudiation of revisionary metaphysics, in which reality is something beyond the world of appearances. Throughout, Individuals advances some highly (...) influential and controversial ideas, such as 'non-solipsistic consciousness' and the concept of a person a 'primitive concept'. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 249 Girolamo Balduino: Ricerche sulla logica della Scuola di Padova nel Rinascimento. By Giovanni Papuli. (Bark Lacerta, Universith di Bari, Pubblicazioni dell'lstituto di filosofia, 12, 1967. Pp. 313. no price.) The philosophers at the University of Padua during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance arc attracting much renewed interest. This study makes accessible again the logical philosophy of Girolamo Balduino, professor at Padua during the (...) second quarter of the sixteenth century. Like other thinkers of his period, 13alduino follows the logic of Aristotle, and looks for progress within the ancient and mediaeval tradition, not for radically new doctrines. He continues the traditional interpretation of Aristotle by Averroes, for whom logic is only an instrumental habitus, a tool or method of demonstration. About the final contribution of the school of Padua to the improvement of Aristotelian logic was the doctrine of regressive demonstration, where demonstration terminates in or discloses the definition. Zabarella's well-known teaching on this point seems to be derived entirely from Balduino. Contrary to the interpretation of Cassirer, followed by Randall, this regressive demonstration is not a universal method of inquiry and is not at all like, and not the historical source of, the new method of Galileo. Papuli's book is solidly based on the original Latin texts, in notes, which are of great value in view of the fact that Balduino's works have been out of print since 1573. Not all of Papuli's interpretations are beyond criticism (e.g., p. 296), but he has done a service in enabling us to reestablish contact with one of the last significant commentators on Aristotle's logic. PAUL J. W. MILLER University of Colorado Documents sur la vie de Jules-Cdsar Vanini de Taurisano. By Emile Namer. (Bari: Adriatica Editrice, n.d.=Univcrsith degli Studi di Bari, Pubblicazioni delFIstituto di Filosofia, II serie, Testi e Documenti, I. Pp. 196+22 facsimile illustrations) Giulio Cesare Vanini (1585-1619) ranks with Giordano Bruno as a modern hero of freedom of philosophical expression. He was tortured and then burned at the stake in Toulouse at the age of thirty-four, because of the unorthodoxy of his views. For this reason, he has drawn more attention than is perhaps deserved on the basis of his rather mediocre writings, which are little more than a tissue of plagiarisms culled from Pomponazzi, Cardano, J. C. Scaliger, and others. In this volume, Emile Namer has collected the scattered documents dealing with Vanini's life and activities. This is a valuable service, for it should enable scholars to disentangle fact from fiction and reality from myth. There has been so much heated discussion regarding Vanini that it is now time that someone should attempt to establish the precise facts and to reevaluate Vanini's place in intellectual history. In the past, writings about him have been governed more often by emotion than by reason. Namer prints documents from Naples, London, Paris, Simancas, and Toulouse. Some of these have been printed before in various journal articles, but it is valuable to have them all together in a single volume. In addition, he prints relevant excerpts concerning--as one of them put it--le douzi~me apostre de Satan, including material from Mersenne, Garasse, and others. He also includes a series of facsimiles of sample pages from the documents which he prints. All in all Namer's work is competently 250 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY done, though perhaps a bit more annotation to put the documents in historical perspective would have been desirable. In any case this little volume must be one of the bases for any future serious biographical or interpretative studies dealing with Vanini. Moreover, it shouM also be useful for scholars dealing with more general questions of seventeenth-century intellectual, religious, and social history. Unfortunately, there is no index, nor bibliography of earlier literature on Vanini, and the Introduction is perhaps too brief to orient the reader who has little previous knowledge of Vanini. CHARLES B. SCHMITT University oJ Leeds Tommaso Campanella: Renaissance Pioneer o[ Modern Thought. By Bernardino M. Bonansea. (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1969. Pp. xi 421. $14.50) This excellent critical study of the life and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:212 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY with Gassendi and his studies on atomism. Yet Papi gives us very little which is not already generally known. There is but a mere hint of how atomistic philosophy was handled by the Aristotelians and to what extent they actually absorbed some of that tradition themselves. Nothing in detail is said of the process whereby atomistic and Platonic motives became coupled, not only by Bruno, (...) but by Ficino before and by Cudworth afterwards. On the credit side, however, the author does call attention to the commentary and paraphrase of Lucretius by Girolamo Frachetta of Rovigo (printed 1589), a work of some interest, which has been but little studied. Such rays of light are all too infrequent in this section and Papi is usually content to follow the conventional beaten path. For one to write a book on Bruno which breaks new ground is now difficult, for the field has been so thoroughly worked over. This one takes up a number of interesting themes found in Bruno's writings and sheds some light on them, but it seldom if ever says anything very different from the well-established tradition of Bruno scholarship in Italy which has produced so many mediocre books over the years. The specialist on Bruno and the sixteenth century will find little to detain him; the more casual reader could be ~rected to a number of superior treatments of various aspects of the Nolan's thought. In short, this study adds but little to what is already known. CHAm~V_SB. ScH~rrr University of Leeds Sir Walter Ralegh dcrivain, l'~uvre et les iddes. By Pierre Lefranc. (Qutbec: Les Presses de l'Universit~ Laval, 1968. Pp. 733. $19.50) This excellent study, the fruit of more than a dozen years of research, throws much light on Ralegh's thought and literary achievement. Lefranc has examined the manuscript sources, and unearthed quite a few new ones, and has patiently, carefully, and with much detective work, established what is no doubt the best available hypothesis of what is authentic among Ralegh's purported prose and poetic writings, and the date and circumstances of their composition. He has analyzed them in the context of Ralegh's carver, and has developed an exciting and rich interpretation of his political, philosophical and religious ideas. Ralegh's role in intellectual history derives mainly from his reputation as a Machiavellian, as an atheist, and from his mammoth, "pious," much-read providential History of the World (written during his years as a prisoner in the Tower of London). Lefranc deftly sorts and weighs the evidence for the various views and attitudes attributed to Ralegh in his own day and by interpreters ever since, and emerges from this examination with a fresh and striking picture of one of the liveliest bridge figures between the Elizabethan Renaissance and the modern world. The establishment of the canon leads to discarding as not by Ralegh many writings that have previously been used in interpreting the courtier's views. Three philosophical works which have played a role in twentieth-century interpretation, "A Treatise of the Soule," "The Prince, or Maxims of State" and "The Sceptick" are shown to be doubtful to a greater or lesser degree. "The Sceptick," which Strathmann (Sir Walter Ralegh,,4 Study in Elizabethan Skepticism, New York, 1951) had used to interpret Ralegh as a sceptical-Christian fideist, had been questioned earlier by Lefranc, Sprott, and myself. It is just a translation of portions of Book I of Sextus F_znpiricus' Outlinea of Pyrrhonism, and contains no connection with Ralegh, except that it was BOOK REVIEWS 213 published in his literary remains in 1651. Lefranc now, examining the evidence of the four manuscripts that have been discovered, concludes that it was a part of Ralegh's documentation when he was doing his research, but that 'Tattribution de 'The Sceptick' Ralegh lui-m~me ne repose sur rien" (p. 67). With the canon shorn of the dubious items, Lefranc proceeds to unfold a picture of Ralegh's intellectual world. As a practical statesman, buccaneer and explorer, Ralegh had a view of the role England should play vis-,'t-vis Spain and the New World that contained... (shrink)

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Scientific realists have suggested that changes in our scientific communities over the course of their history have rendered those communities progressively less vulnerable to the problem of unconcieved alternatives over time. I argue in response not only that the most fundamental historical transformations of the scientific enterprise have generated steadily mounting obstacles to revolutionary, transformative, or unorthodox scientific theorizing, but also that we have substantial independent evidence that the institutional apparatus of contemporary scientific inquiry fosters an exceedingly and increasingly theoretically (...) conservative form of that inquiry. I conclude that contemporary scientific communities are actually more vulnerable to the problem of unconceived alternatives than their historical predecessors, and I briefly suggest how we might seek to pursue scientific inquiry in a less theoretically conservative way. (shrink)

A range of empirical findings is first used to more precisely characterize our distinctive tendency to objectify or externalize moral demands and obligations, and it is then argued that this salient feature of our moral cognition represents a profound puzzle for evolutionary approaches to human moral psychology that existing proposals do not help resolve. It is then proposed that such externalization facilitated a broader shift to a vastly more cooperative form of social life by establishing and maintaining a connection between (...) the extent to which an agent is herself motivated by a given moral norm and the extent to which she uses conformity to that same norm as a criterion in evaluating candidate partners in social interaction generally. This connection ensures the correlated interaction necessary to protect those prepared to adopt increasingly cooperative, altruistic, and other prosocial norms of interaction from exploitation, especially as such norms were applied in novel ways and/or to novel circumstances and as the rapid establishment of new norms allowed us to reap still greater rewards from hypercooperation. A wide range of empirical findings is then used to support this hypothesis, showing why the status we ascribe to moral demands and considerations exhibits the otherwise puzzling combination of objective and subjective elements that it does, as well as showing how the need to effectively advertise our externalization of particular moral commitments generates features of our social interaction so familiar that they rarely strike us as standing in need of any explanation in the first place. (shrink)

First published in 1952, professor Strawsonâes highly influential Introduction to Logical Theory provides a detailed examination of the relationship between the behaviour of words in common language and the behaviour of symbols in a logical system. He seeks to explain both the exact nature of the discipline known as Formal Logic, and also to reveal something of the intricate logical structure of ordinary unformalised discourse.

It is a paradox that medical experimentation on individuals, whether patients or healthy volunteers, is now controlled by strict ethical guidelines, while no such protection exists for whole populations which are subjected to medical interventions in the name of preventive medicine or health promotion. As many such interventions are either of dubious benefit or of uncertain harm-benefit balance, such as mass screening for cancers or for risk factors associated with coronary heart disease, there is no justification for maintaining the ethical (...) vacuum in which preventive medicine finds itself at present. (shrink)

This volume collects P. M. S. Hacker's papers on Wittgenstein and related themes written over the last decade. Hacker provides comparative studies of a range of topics--including Wittgenstein's philosophy of psychology, conception of grammar, and treatment of intentionality--and defends his own Wittgensteinian conception of philosophy.

This Festschrift in Professor Kristeller’s honor consists of contributions by scholars who have had some connection with Columbia University, his "intellectual home in the United States for three decades." It also includes a Tabula Gratulatoria listing many other friends from the United States and Europe. The editor’s opening essay provides an interesting and informative account of this scholar’s academic career, and should be read together with the complete annotated bibliography of his publications through 1974. The latter lists 149 "major publications" (...) and 220 "minor publications." Kristeller’s contributions to the history of Renaissance philosophy are well known to historians of philosophy, and deservedly so. Here reference should be made to his groundbreaking studies on Marsilio Ficino and Pomponazzi, and on others such as Pico della Mirandola and Petrarch, as well as on Renaissance Platonism, Aristotelianism in the Renaissance, Thomism in the Renaissance, Paduan Averroism, and Alexandrism. But he has also contributed greatly to the fields of medieval and Renaissance history, and especially to our understanding of Renaissance humanism, Renaissance music, and Renaissance art. He is universally recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on manuscript research, as is witnessed, for example, by the cooperative project, Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum, which he founded, and by his Iter ltalicum. In all of these enterprises he has set an enviable example for other scholars by the exacting standards and the breadth of his expertise. It is only fitting, then, that the many essays in this Festschrift should reflect the breadth and depth of the scholarship so evident in the man to whom they are dedicated. Limitations of space will only permit us to list them here, with a few remarks reserved for those of more special interest to philosophers and historians of philosophy: Eugene F. Rice, Jr., "The De magia naturali of Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples" ; Donald R. Kelley, "Louis Le Caron Philosophe", on Le Caron’s effort to bring together jurisprudence and classical, especially Platonic, philosophy; Richard H. Popkin, "The Pre-Adamite Theory in the Renaissance", with fascinating material about theories concerning men before Adam in La Peyrère and widely scattered earlier sources; Richard Lemay, "The Fly against the Elephant: Flandinus against Pomponazzi on Fate", on an unedited attack by an Augustinian Bishop against Pomponazzi’s espousal of the Stoic doctrine of fate; Martin Pine, "Pietro Pomponazzi and the Medieval Tradition of God’s Foreknowledge", on Pomponazzi’s solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom inlight of his familiarity with earlier discussions by Boethius, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham; F. Edward Cranz, "Editions of the Latin Aristotle Accompanied by the Commentaries of Averroes", helpful to all who wish to consult late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century versions of the Latin Aristotle and especially the Latin Averroes; Josef Soudek, "A Fifteenth-Century Humanistic Bestseller: The Manuscript Diffusion of Leonardo Bruni’s Annotated Latin Version of the Aristotelian Economics" ; Edward P. Mahoney, "Nicoletto Vernia on the Soul and Immortality", which details a radical shift on Vernia’s part from an earlier Averroistic reading of Aristotle; Joan Kelly-Gadol, "Tommaso Campanella: The Agony of Political Theory in the Counter-Reformation", which attempts to account for some of the shifts and inconsistencies in Campanella’s political writings by placing them within the troubled personal and political circumstances of his life; Charles Trinkaus, "Protagoras in the Renaissance: An Exploration" ; Maristella de Panizza Lorch, "Voluptas, molle quoddam et non invidiosum nomen: Lorenzo Valla’s Defense of voluptas in the Preface to his De voluptate" ; Neal W. Gilbert, "Richard de Bury and the ‘Quires of Yesterday’s Sophisms"’, with much interesting material on the medieval tradition of sophismata, especially at Oxford; Malcolm Brown, "A Pre-Aristotelian Mathematician on Deductive Order" ; John H. Randall, Jr., "Paduan Aristotelianism Reconsidered", on evidence for influence of the Italian Aristotelian tradition on Galileo; William F. Edwards, "Niccoló Leoniceno and the Origins of Humanist Discussion of Method" ; C. Doris Hellman, "A Poem on the Occasion of the Nova of 1572" ; Edward Rosen, "Kepler’s Mastery of Greek" ; W. T. H. Jackson, "The Politics of a Poet: The Archipoeta as Revealed by his Imagery" ; John Charles Nelson, "Love and Sex in the Decameron" ; George B. Parks, "Pico della Mirandola in Tudor Translation" ; Richard Harrier, "Invention in Tudor Literature: Historical Perspectives" ; Helene Wieruszowski, "Jacob Burckhardt and Vespasiano da Bisticci " ; Morimichi Watanabe, "Gregor Heimburg and Early Humanism in Germany" ; Raymond de Roover, "Cardinal Cajetan on ‘Cambium’ or Exchange Dealings" ; and a series of text editions with introductions including Julius Kirshner, "Conscience and Public Finance: A Questio disputata of John of Legnano on the Public Debt of Genoa" ; John Mundy, "The Origins of the College of Saint-Raymond at the University of Toulouse" ; Charles B. Schmitt, "Girolamo Borro’s Multae sunt nostrarum ignorantionum causae " ; Guido Kisch, "An Unpublished Consiliumof Johannes Sichardus" ; Patricia H. Labalme, "The Last Will of a Venetian Patrician " ; Felix Gilbert, "The Last Will of a Venetian Grand Chancellor" ; Herbert S. Matsen, "Giovanni Garzoni to Alessandro Achillini : An Unpublished Letter and Defense" ; Theodore E. James, "A Fragment of An Exposition of the First Letter of Seneca to Lucilius Attributed to Peter of Mantua". The editor, his collaborators, and the contributors are all to be commended for the high quality of this volume.—J.F.W. (shrink)

The aim is to uncover the foundations of quine's distinction between definite singular terms and general terms in predicative position, And hence of the general schema of predication, 'fx'. While each term in such a predication specifies its own item, The items so specified exhibit a typical difference exemplified in the basic case by the difference between spatio-Temporal particulars and properties of such particulars. A generally consequential difference of role is that while both terms are applied to the item of (...) lower type, Only the definite singular term has the function of identifying it. (shrink)

J. L. Mackie's famous claim that Locke ‘anticipates’ Kripke's Causal Theory of Reference (CTR) rests, I suggest, upon a pair of important misunderstandings. Contra Mackie, as well as the more recent accounts of Paul Guyer and Michael Ayers, Lockean Real Essences consist of those features of an entity from which all of its experienceable properties can be logically deduced; thus a substantival Real Essence consists of features of a Real Constitution plus logically necessary objective connections between them and features of (...) some particular Nominal Essence. Furthermore, what Locke actually anticipates is the most significant contemporary challenge to the CTR: the qua‐problem. (shrink)

Davidson’s explanation of first‐person authority in utterance of sentences of the form ‘I V that p’ derives first‐person authority from the requirements of interpretation of speech. His account is committed to the view that utterance sentences are truth‐bearers, that believing that p is a matter of holding true an utterance sentence, and that a speaker’s knowledge of what he means gives him knowledge of what belief he expresses by his utterance. These claims are here faulted. His explanation of first‐person authority (...) by reference to the requirements of interpretability is committed to the view that all understanding involves interpretation. This is argued to be a misconception of understanding and of speaker’s meaning. Davidson’s account involves acceptance of the cognitive assumption that normally when a person Vs that p, he knows that he does. This assumption is challenged. Throughout, Davidson’s conception is compared and contrasted with Wittgenstein’s. (shrink)

The language of Greek Tragedy can be considered as a whole by virtue of the characteristics which distinguish it from that of other branches of Greek literature, and the resemblance between the three tragedians in this respect is more noticeable than the differences. Still, if we compare Aeschylus and Euripides it is impossible not to feel a marked change of tone, in λ⋯ξις as in δι⋯νοια and ἤθη. As in E. the familiar legends are frequently set in a more everyday (...) atmosphere and the characters cast in a less heroic mould, it is natural that the tone of the language should be lowered, partly by the frequent use of distinctively prosaic expressions and partly by the introduction of what appear to be colloquialisms. This change of tone in language was at once noted by Aristophanes and is referred to by Aristotle as an innovation of E. On the other hand E.'s style presents a certain anomaly, since while deliberately securing a closer approximation to the language of prose and ordinary conversation he also shows a poetic and archaizing tendency in the use of Aeschylean and Homeric words and forms not found in Sophocles. This may be due to a reluctance to depart too far from the poetic tradition of Greek tragedy, and possibly to a scholar's interest in the language of Aeschylus and Homer, in a minor degree a foreshadowing of the learned archaism of the Alexandrian poets. (shrink)

I respond to the many thoughtful suggestions and concerns of my commentators on a wide variety of questions. These include whether moral norms form a unified category, whether they have a distinctive phenomenology, and/or whether moral normativity is a cultural construct; whether moral externalization is necessary for correlated interaction or human prosociality; precisely how such externalization generates correlated interactions among prosocial agents; and whether there are any convincing alternative explanations for it.

Wilfrid Sellars famously argued that we find ourselves simultaneously presented with the scientific and manifest images and that the primary aim of philosophy is to reconcile the competing conceptions of ourselves and our place in the world they offer. I first argue that Sellars’ own attempts at such a reconciliation must be judged a failure. I then go on to point out that Sellars has invited us to join him in idealizing and constructing the manifest and scientific images by conflating (...) a number of importantly distinct contrasts between heterogeneous forms of representation we employ and to argue that we are better off declining this invitation. Recognizing the important differences between these contrasts does not simply obviate the problems of integrating, connecting, and reconciling the various sorts of representations we have of various parts of the world and our own place within it, but it reveals as misguided the notion that there is just a single, fundamental problem of such reconciliation to be solved. It also suggests a potentially far more promising starting point for trying to satisfy the fundamental ambition Sellars attributes to philosophical inquiry itself. (shrink)

The federal government is funding a sea change in health care by investing in interventions targeting social determinants of health, which are significant contributors to illness and health inequity. This funding power has encouraged states, professional and accreditation organizations, health care entities, and providers to focus heavily on social determinants. We examine how this shift in focus affects clinical practice in the fields of oncology and emergency medicine, and highlight potential areas of reform.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Preface to the First Edition -- Introduction -- 1 On Referring -- 2 Particular and General -- 3 Singular Terms and Predication -- 4 Identifying Reference and Truth-Values -- 5 The Asymmetry of Subjects and Predicates -- 6 Propositions, Concepts, and Logical Truths -- 7 Grammar and Philosophy -- 8 Intention and Convention in Speech Acts -- 9 Meaning and Truth -- 10 Truth -- 11 A Problem (...) about Truth -- 12 Truth: A Reconsideration of Austin's Views -- Index of Names. (shrink)

Suppose COVID-19 is the runaway tram in the famous moral thought experiment, known as the “Bystander at the Switch.” Consider the two differentiated responses of governments around the world to this new threat, namely the option of quarantine/lockdown and herd immunity. Can we contrast the hypothetical with the real scenario? What do the institutional decisions and strategies for dealing with the virus, in the beginning of 2020, signify in a normative moral framework? This paper investigates these possibilities in order to (...) highlight the similarities and, more importantly, the differences that exist between utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. Analysis shows that the hypothetical scenario can never be fully compared to the complex multifactorial nature of the real world. But if a comparison is attempted, the most obvious difference between the two governmental strategies is the concept of duty within the Kantian perspective. Ultimately, it is a matter of comparing freedom and life. Attributing a moral “priority ticket” to one or the other can be analysed through interpersonal aggregation. (shrink)

1. First person authority: the received explanation Over a wide range of psychological attributes, a mature speaker seems to enjoy a defeasible form of authority on how things are with him. The received explanation of this is epistemic, and rests upon a cognitive assumption. The speaker’s word is a authoritative because when things are thus-and-so with him, then normally he knows that they are. This is held to be because the speaker has direct and privileged access to the contents of (...) his consciousness by means of introspection, conceived as a faculty of inner sense. Like perceptual knowledge, introspective knowledge is held to be direct and non-evidential. Accordingly, the first-person utterances ‘I have a pain’, ‘I believe that p’, ‘I intend to V’ are taken to be descriptions of what is evident to inner sense. Many classical thinkers held such subjective knowledge to be not only immediate, but also infallible and indubitable. The challenge to the received conceptions came from Wittgenstein. He denied the cognitive assumption, arguing that it cannot be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know that I am in pain. For what is that supposed to mean — except perhaps that I am in pain?1 If it makes no sense to say that one knows that one is in pain, then the epistemic explanation is a non-starter, since it explains the special authoritative status of a person’s avowal of pain by reference to the putative fact that the subject of pain knows, normally knows, or cannot but know, that he is in pain when he is. It is important to note that Wittgenstein did not mechanically generalize the case of pain across the whole domain of firstperson utterances. The case of pain constitutes only one pole of a range of such utterances. Avowals and averrals of belief and intention approximate the other pole, and require independent analysis and grammatical description. (shrink)

P. Kyle Stanford - The Manifest Connection: Causation, Meaning, and David Hume - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 339-360 The Manifest Connection: Causation, Meaning, and David Hume P. Kyle Stanford 1. Introduction exciting recent hume scholarship has challenged the traditional view that Hume's theory of meaning leads him to deny the very intelligibility or coherence of supposing that there are objective causal powers or intrinsic necessary connections between causally related entities. Influential (...) recent interpretations have variously held that Hume himself accepted the existence of such powers and connections, that he was genuinely agnostic about them, or that he denied their existence while nonetheless holding it to be a perfectly coherent possibility, indeed one that we routinely think actual. In this paper I will argue against all three of these lines of interpretation and in favor of what I consider a neglected alternative: that Hume rejects the existence of objective necessary connections or causal powers as literally incoherent or meaningless, but on subtle and sophisticated semantic grounds, rather than simplistic ones. I find support for this semantic reading and against the alternatives not only in passages whose significance to the debate is widely appreciated, but also in Hume's discussions "Of Liberty and Necessity" and "Of the Immateriality of the Soul." The.. (shrink)