Goodman criticizes the how-what definition of style as how something is said by contrast with the content or substance of what is said. He rejects a literal version of the definition as applying too specifically only to literature and other artworks in which linguistic expression is possible. He also complains that in many artworks what is said and how it is said are so intertwined that it is impossible to distinguish the two for purposes of identifying an artistic style. Goodman (...) then argues for an alternative account, according to which style is a metaphorical signature involving the characteristic symbolic functioning of an artwork. I raise a number of conceptual difficulties about Goodman's proposal, suggesting that where symbols are not narrowly linguistic, Goodman's category of symbolic functioning is so broad as to include natural objects to which it is implausible to attribute style. In its place, I defend a modified expanded formulation of the how-what definition by describing what any activity or its result does at a higher level of abstraction than the description of how it is done, in order to avoid confusing the what of substance with the how of style. (shrink)

God knows or hath ideas; but His ideas are not convey'd to Him by sense, as ours are. Your not distinguishing where there is so manifest a difference, makes you fancy you see an absurdity where there is none.

This essay examines David Hume's principal criticism of the idea of the infinite divisibility of extension in the ink-spot experiment of _Treatise<D>, Book I, Part II, and his arguments for his positive theory of finitely divisible space as composed of finitely many sensible extensionless indivisibles or _minima sensibilia<D>. The essay considers Hume's strict finitist metaphysics of space in the context of his reactions to a trilemma about the impossibility of the divisibility of extension on any theory posed by Pierre Bayle (...) in the article on "Zeno of Elea" in his _Dictionary Historical and Critical<D>. I evaluate Hume's arguments in light of complaints raised by contemporary commentators, and I compare the inference of the _Treatise<D> with Hume's final words on the subject, in the cryptic Berkeleyan 'hint' of the first _Enquiry<D>, to the effect that the idea of infinite divisibility is subject to general objections to 'all _abstract<D> reasonings'. (shrink)

Hume on Infinite Divisibility and Sensible Extensionless Indivisibles DALE JACQUETTE 'Twere certainly to be wish'd, that some expedient were fallen upon to reconcile philosophy and common sense, which with regard to the question of infinite divisibility have wag'd most cruel wars with each other. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature 1. THE DIVISIBILITY ARGUMENTS David Hume's refutation of the infinite divisibility of space and time, and his doctrine of the sensible extensionless indivisibles that constitute extension, are perhaps the (...) least loved, and until recently, least examined aspects of his early philosophy. The fact that Hume reduced his lengthy discussion of the prob- lem from the Treatise to just two pages of the first Enquiry, together with his disavowal of the first work in the Enquiry's "Advertisement," have reinforced the tendency to ignore his arguments. ~ Opinions on the merits of Hume's analysis of space are widely divided. To give a sense of the disparity, Donald L. M. Baxter, in "Hume on Infinite Divisibility," maintains: "Far from begging the question, Hume has available a respectable argument against the infinite divisibility of finite spatial intervals."' C. D. Broad, on the contrary, in his Dawes Hicks Lecture on Philosophy to the British Academy, "Hume's Doctrine of Space," concludes: "I think, then, that Hume's whole account of spatial divisibility can David Hume, Essays and Treatises on... (shrink)

L'analyse de la personne ou de l'oeuvre d'art comme entité matériellement incorporée et culturellement émergente est centrale dans l'oeuvre de Joseph Margolis : il tente de développer un dualisme des propriétés, comme alternative au réalisme platonicien et au dualisme ontique cartésien, en esthétique et en « philosophy of mind ». La définition de l'incorporation proposée par Margolis est ici critiquée par le moyen d'un contre-exemple, et plusieurs révisions possibles de cette définition, en vue d'éviter l'objection, sont aussi rejetées. La théorie (...) de Margolis nous délivre en principe des inconvénients métaphysiques des ontologies traditionnelles ; mais elle ne peut être acceptée tant et aussi longtemps que le concept d'incorporation n'aura pas été défini d'une façon satisfaisante.The analysis of a person or artwork as a materially embodied culturally emergent entity is central to Joseph Margolis' attempt to develop property dualism as an alternative to Platonic realism or ontic Cartesian dualism in aesthetics and the philosophy of mind. Margolis' definition of material embodiment is criticized by counter-example, and several methods of revising the definition to avoid the objection are discredited. Margolis' theory in principle offers relief from the metaphysical disadvantages of traditional ontologies. But the proposal cannot be accepted unless or until the concept of material embodiment is correctly defined. (shrink)

“Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.”J. D. Salinger’s tale of juvenile weltschmerz, The Catcher in the Rye,1 portrays a personal psychology of youthful disillusion. Holden Caulfield, the novel’s narrator and antihero, embarks on an existential odyssey in New York City after being drummed out of his fourth private prep school for failing grades.Smart and resourceful enough when the occasion requires, Holden is disgusted with virtually everything and everyone around him. By maintaining a (...) negative attitude, he excuses himself in his own mind from doing anything potentially disappointing—it is all futile and pointless anyway. Holden thereby cultivates an attitude that prevents him.. (shrink)

In Simple Minds, Dan Lloyd presents a reductive account of naturally representing machines. The theory entails that a system represents an event by virtue of potentially misrepresenting it whenever the machine satisfies a multiple information channel, convergence, and uptake condition. I argue that Lloyd's conditions are insufficient for systems intrinsically naturally to misrepresent, and hence insufficient for them intrinsically naturally to represent. The appearance of potential misrepresentation in such machines is achieved only by reference to the extrinsic design or extrinsic (...) interpretation or attribution of an intrinsically nonexistent or underdetermined purpose, end, or goal to such devices in identifying an intended object of representation in the system's salient behavior under the uptake condition. The implication is that Lloyd-representation is not intrinsic natural representation in a cognitively relevant sense, and Lloyd's simple ‘minds’ are not minds but mere machines. (shrink)

This is a review of *Meinongian Logic* (by Dale Jacquette).

Critical review of Dale Jacquette's *Meinongian Logic*.

Nicholas Rescher has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in philosophy, writing on many different areas from logic to philosophy of language, epistemology, pragmatism, ethics and political philosophy, and metaphilosophy. Reason, Method, and Value: A Reader on the Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher offers a selection of Rescher's writings over a span of decades representing the core of his prodigious research interests in six key areas. Each section of the *Reader* is accompanied by a compact critical introduction written by a leading (...) philosophical scholar with spezial expertise in Rescher's philosophy, and the volume opens with an appreciative introduction written by the editor and a concluding retrospective by Rescher, looking back over his oeuvre and explaining connecting themes and the unity of system contained in this extensive body of work. Taken together, the volume encapsulates the heart of Rescher's impressive lifelong contributions to philosophy between two covers, in a single volume that provides a solid overview of his thought while serving to direct readers to the corpus of Rescher's writings for amore complete picture. (shrink)

From Descartes and Cartesian mind-body dualism in the 17th century though to 21st-century concerns about artificial intelligence programming, The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Consciousness presents a compelling history and up-to-date overview of this burgeoning subject area. Acknowledging that many of the original concepts of consciousness studies are found in writings of past thinkers, it begins with introductory overviews to the thought of Descartes through to Kant, covering Brentano's restoration of empiricism to philosophical psychology and the major figures of (...) the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Russell, Wittgenstein, Ryle and James. These opening chapters on the forces in the history of consciousness lay the groundwork needed to understand how influential contemporary thinkers in the philosophy of mind interpret the concept of consciousness. Featuring leading figures in the field, Part II discusses current issues in a range of topics progressing from the so-called hard problem of understanding the nature of consciousness, to the methodology of invoking the possibility of philosophical zombies and the prospects of reductivism in philosophy of mind. Part III is dedicated to new research directions in the philosophy of consciousness, including chapters on experiment objections to functionalism and the scope and limits of artificial intelligence. Equipped with practical research resources including an annotated bibliography, a research guide and a glossary, The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Consciousness is an authoritative guide for studying the past, present and future of consciousness. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Creative Inner Space O True Apothecary! A Votary to Fond Desire Philosophers Gaining Altitude Insight and Delusion Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Cannabis.

Socioeconomic Darwinism is one of the great dilemmas of our industrialized culture, playing itself out in economic events as it does periodically, in an appalling way. The authors expect marketplace competition to result in the better quality, availability, and affordability of a wider range of goods. In each episode of South Park, the authors talk about the boys reflecting on daily life, spiced up with bizarre imaginative cartoon elements, occasional aliens, a pterodactyl or two, biological mishaps, nuclear meltdowns, celebrity politicians, (...) and an endless stream of adult behavior that can only be classified as stranger than weirdness. Death is the great equalizer, which the boys are just old enough to sense. (shrink)

The consistent formalization of Meinong's object theory in recent mathematical logic requires either plural modes of predication, or distinct categories of nuclear or constitutive and extranuclear or nonconstitutive properties. The plural modes of predication approach is rejected because it is reducible to the nuclear extranuclear property distinction, but not conversely, and because the nuclear extranuclear property distinction offers a more satisfactory solution to object theory paradoxes.

The traditional conception of knowledge as justified true belief is refuted in two famous counterexamples by Edmund L. Gettier. Roderick M. Chisholm has attempted to rescue a version of the traditional conception by distinguishing between defective and nondefective kinds of justification, and redefining knowledge more specifically as nondefectively justified true belief. Chisholm's revised definition avoids Gettier's counterexamples, but goes too far in the opposite direction, imposing conditions that are too narrow and not jointly necessary for knowledge. Chisholm's definition excludes some (...) claims that intuitively constitute genuine knowledge1 by entailing that if a true belief is invalidated as knowledge when defectively justified by a total body of evidence that also makes evident at least one false proposition, then no knowledge whatsoever can be supported by the same evidence. An alternative analysis of knowledge is proposed, according to which the potential loophole between the state of affairs that justifies belief in a proposition, and the state of affairs that makes the proposition true, permitted by the traditional concept of knowledge and discovered by Gettier's counterexamples, is closed by redefining knowledge as semantically‐epistemically evidentially relevant justified true belief. (shrink)

MĂDĂLINA DIACONU, Tasten, Riechen, Schmecken. Eine Ästhetik der anästhesierten Sinne, 2005 ; SILVIA STOLLER, VERONICA VASTERLING,LINDA FISHER, Feministische Phänomenologie und Hermeneutik, 2005 ; KARL SCHUHMANN, Karl Schuhmann: Selected Papers on Phenomenology. Edited by CEES LEIJENHORST and PIET STEENBAKKERS, 2004 ; HIROSHI GOTO, Der Begriff der Person in der PhänomenologieHusserls. Ein Interpretationsversuch der Husserlschen Phänomenologie als Ethik im Hinblick auf den Begriff der Habitualität, 2004 ; GÜNTER FIGAL, Lebensverstricktheit und Abstandsnahme. „Verhalten zu sich“ im Anschluss an Heidegger, Kierkegaard und Hegel, 2001 (...) ; JACQUES DERRIDA, Le toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy, 2000. (shrink)

John Buridan's Sophismata contains some of the most interesting puzzles and paradoxes of any of the many surviving medieval informal logic manuals. Buridan's purpose is not only to illustrate and challenge Aristotelian syllogistic with difficulties of interpretation, but also in part to lay logical philosophical foundations for a radically nominalistic ontology in the tradition of William of Ockham.

A complete philosophy of mathematics must address Paul Benacerraf’s dilemma. The requirements of a general semantics for the truth of mathematical theorems that coheres also with the meaning and truth conditions for non-mathematical sentences, according to Benacerraf, should ideally be coupled with an adequate epistemology for the discovery of mathematical knowledge. Standard approaches to the philosophy of mathematics are criticized against their own merits and against the background of Benacerraf’s dilemma, particularly with respect to the problem of understanding the distinction (...) between pure and applied mathematics and the effectiveness of applied mathematics in the natural sciences and engineering. The evaluation of these alternatives provides the basis for articulating a philosophically advantageous Aristotelian inherence concept of mathematical entities. An inherence account solves Benacerraf’s dilemma by interpreting mathematical entities as nominalizations of structural spatiotemporal properties inhering in existent spatiotemporal entities. (shrink)

P. M. S. Hacker, Wittgenstein’s place in twentieth-century analytic philosophy:Oxford Blackwell, 1996. xviii + 346 pp. £50.00 $54.00 (cloth); £14.99 $21.95 (paper) Jarmo Pulkkinen, The threat of logical mathematism. A study on the critique of mathematical logic in Germany at the turn of the 20th century. Frankfurt a.M:Peter Lang, 1994. Scandinavian University Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences; 7). 186 pp. 24 DM. ISBN 3-631-47409-1.

In his philosophy of culture, Joseph Margolis maintains that, although human beings and human societies have a history, there is no human nature in the sense of a fixed essence. I consider objections to Margolis's thesis, beginning with the possibility that nonhuman intelligent species might be in a position to study human behavior from its origins to its demise with the proper distance from our own situation in order to arrive at an understanding of what is essential to human nature, (...) perhaps as a Kantian regulative rather than constitutive principle, and involving abstractions from particular cases and idealizations, as in other branches of science. Finally, I examine the historical‐past orientation of Margolis's concept of humanity's self‐understanding and its dependence on the intentionality of human thought, and I conclude that it provides an inadequate reason for denying that there can be such a thing as human nature. (shrink)

Presented here are translations of two essays of the Austrian logician, philosopher and experimental psychologist Ernst Mally, originally delivered at the Third International Congress of Philosophy in Heidelberg, Germany. Both essays conclude with discussion between Mally and Kurt Grelling. Mally was a student of Alexius Meinong and a contributor to logical investigations in the field of object theory (Gegenstandstheorie). In these essays, Mally introduces a vital distinction between formal and extra-formal ?determinations? (Bestimmungen), and he argues that formal determinations are not (...) part of the identity conditions for intended objects, but provide the basis for a theory of pure logical and mathematical relations. Mally then proceeds to develop a formal logic of formal and extra-formal determinations, whose interrelations of ontic and modal predications provide an analysis of fundamental object theory concepts. (shrink)