Is God's foreknowledge compatible with human freedom? One of the most attractive attempts to reconcile the two is the Ockhamistic view, which subscribes not only to human freedom and divine omniscience, but retains our most fundamental intuitions concerning God and time: that the past is immutable, that God exists and acts in time, and that there is no backward causation. In order to achieve all that, Ockhamists distinguish ‘hard facts’ about the past which cannot possibly be altered from ‘soft facts’ (...) about the past which are alterable, and argue that God's prior beliefs about human actions are soft facts about the past. (shrink)

Rescher has presented a proof that a completed science is logically impossible; not every truth can be known. I show that the proof is valid only if it is read de re. One of its premises, however, is an obvious truth only on a de dicto reading; read de re it is false. What the proof shows, therefore, is that science has no limits and any true proposition can be known. We can, however, know it only in the meagre de (...) re, and not in the informationally rich de dicto, sense of 'know'. (shrink)

I believe that the world is a totality of things: there are no properties, or relations, or sets, or states of affairs, or facts, or events; there are only particular things. I also believe that all true statements can be expressed in a canonical language which includes names of things and logical terms only: there will be no predicates in this language. For what is a predicate? Some say that predicates are names of universals which individual things exemplify, or names (...) of sets of which individual things are members. If this is so, it is obvious that a nominalist's canonical language cannot have any predicates. Others say that predicates name nothing, but are satisfied by particular things. What, however, is satisfaction, and how is it different from naming? Semantic relations such as satisfaction, we are told, are not ‘in’ the world. But then a nominalist has no use for them. (shrink)

I defend a slightly modified version of geach's rule r, I.E., That although both a and b are g, It is possible for a to be the same f as b and a different h than b, Provided that the question whether a and b are the same g is undecidable. Answering those who object to relative identity I claim that they tacitly adhere to a false fregean view, I.E., That one cannot use a singular term to denote an entity (...) x if it is not true that for every y, X=y or not x=y. I show, However, That such terms are, And must be, Used by every empirically oriented language with finite or infinite predicative arsenal, And hence relative identity is more handy than absolute identity. Finally I give a version of leibniz's law for relative identity. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s first account of meaning was that sentences are pictures: the meaning of a sentence is a state of affairs it portrays. States of affairs are arrangements of some basic entities, the Objects. Sentences consist of names of Objects; an arrangement of such names, i.e., a sentence, shows how the named Objects are arranged. A sentence says that the state of affairs it thus pictures exists, hence it is true or false. That theory of meaning as picturing is based on (...) a primitive relation of naming, but what it is for an item to name another the Tractatus does not say. (shrink)

It has been persuasively argued that music refers. For example, a passage that resembles the demeanour of people under the sway of emotion E is seen as itself being E and, thus, as referring to E. Yet what is the purpose of such reference? Serious music, I say, works as a proof. A passage that refers to E is cast as a well-formed formula in a calculus. That formula is then creatively developed in accordance with the rules of that calculus (...) (e.g. harmony and counterpoint in classical music). As in scientific proofs, intermediary generated formulae need not have external meaning over and above the character they have due to their role in the formal sequence. Yet finally a formula is derived that does have external meaning; for example, it refers to emotion F. The composer has thus fictionally proved that E is equal to F, e.g. that hope is futile or that love conquers all. (shrink)

According to the 'axiom of existence', Adopted in this article, Terms which do not denote existent entities do not denote at all. 'past entities', 'future entities', 'possible entities', 'fictional entities', Etc. Do not exist. The class of denoting terms has, Therefore, A changing membership. 'nixon' denotes now, But will fail to denote one hundred years from now. The same is true for terms indicating properties (e.G., '... Is a missile'). A theory of meaning and truth is developed on the basis (...) of this axiom. A denotationless term may still be meaningful. 'x' means, In english, 'the entity which ...' where the dots stand for a certain conjunction of open sentences known to speakers of english in various degrees, Found in reference books of authority, Etc. A statement can be true through either correspondence or analyticity. Thus 'nixon is the u.S. President' is (now) true in both ways. 'socrates was a philosopher', '2+2=4', And 'hamlet killed polonius' are only analytically true. 'polonius killed hamlet' is false. (shrink)

In both "individuals" and "the bounds of sense" p f strawson has argued that the no-Ownership theory of mental states is incoherent. He has argued for example, That the no-Ownership theorist must use, In stating his theory, A concept the validity of which the theory attempts to deny (i.E., That experiences are necessarily owned). I show that this argument is based on a confusion of modalities, Mistaking "de dicto" for "de re" necessity. I further show that the very claim that (...) sets of experiences are identifiable only through reference to their "havers" is mistaken. Mental events are individuated and grouped together exactly as physical events are. I therefore conclude that a person "consists" of, "inter alia", Mental particulars; his thoughts are his in the same sense that his legs are his own. Siding with hume against kant, Strawson, And shoemaker, I argue that there are criteria for ascription of experience to persons and a person must use those criteria in ascribing experiences, Even current ones, To himself. Hence, A person who misapplies those criteria may be mistaken in believing of a certain experience that it is (or is not) his own. (shrink)

Relativists try to reduce the realistic notion of truth or make do without it. Rorty, e.g., regards 'true' as an indexical, or as a commendatory term; both construals result in contradictions. Dummett replaces truth by assertability, but that results in a vicious regress, making it impossible, first, to state the theory, and second, that nonomniscients know anything. Quine, rejecting meaning and reference altogether, ends with a picture of language that is a mere pattern of (e.g., vocal) interactions; by its own (...) light, that theory is incomprehensible and unjustifiable. Truth as correspondence to reality is therefore an irreducible notion. (shrink)

Relativists try to reduce the realistic notion of truth or make do without it. Rorty, e.g., regards 'true' as an indexical, or as a commendatory term; both construals result in contradictions. Dummett replaces truth by assertability, but that results in a vicious regress, making it impossible, first, to state the theory, and second, that nonomniscients know anything. Quine, rejecting meaning and reference altogether, ends with a picture of language that is a mere pattern of (e.g., vocal) interactions; by its own (...) light, that theory is incomprehensible and unjustifiable. Truth as correspondence to reality is therefore an irreducible notion. (shrink)

This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

With increased visibility of trans people comes increased philosophical interest in gendered language. This chapter aims to look at the research on gendered language in analytic philosophy of language so far, which has focused on two concerns: (1) determining how to define gender terms like ‘man’ and ‘woman’ such that they are trans inclusive and (2) if, or to what extent, we should use gendered language at all. We argue that the literature has focused too heavily on how gendered language (...) can harm trans people, and has not considered how trans people use gendered language to create meaning and joy for ourselves. Pulling from the literature in sociolinguistics, we look at examples of how trans people use language to make their lives better by gaining recognition, playing with gendered language, finding joy in gendered language, and taking control of definitional power, concluding that debates about gendered language need to consider not only how such language harms trans people but also how trans people use it for our own liberation. (shrink)

Dubbed “Nietzsche without his hammer” by literary critic James Wood, the Romanian philosopher E. M. Cioran is known as much for his profound pessimism and fatalistic approach as for the lyrical, raging prose with which he communicates them. Unlike many of his other works, such as On the Heights of Despair and Tears and Saints, The New Gods eschews his usual aphoristic approach in favor of more extensive and analytic essays. Returning to many of Cioran’s favorite themes, The New Gods (...) explores humanity’s attachment to gods, death, fear, and infirmity, in essays that vary widely in form and approach. In “Paleontology” Cioran describes a visit to a museum, finding the relatively pedestrian destination rife with decay, death, and human weakness. In another chapter, Cioran explores suicide in shorter, impressionistic bursts, while “The Demiurge” is a shambolic exploration of man’s relationship with good, evil, and God. All the while, The New Gods reaffirms Cioran’s belief in “lucid despair,” and his own signature mixture of pessimism and skepticism in language that never fails to be a pleasure. Perhaps his prose itself is an argument against Cioran’s near-nihilism: there is beauty in his books. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I II.

This chapter contains sections titled: I II.