The role of "skillful means" is examined in relation to the important Mahāyāna philosopher Nāgārjuna, and it is argued that the doctrine of "emptiness" is best understood as a critical reflection on the nature of Buddhist praxis. Whereas traditional Western scholarship sees Nāgārjuna as struggling with certain metaphysical problems, a "skillful means" reading situates his philosophy within a debate about the nature and efficacy of Buddhist practice. Thus, a "skillful means" reading of Nāgārjuna does not ask what it means for (...) causality, the self, or consciousness to be "empty" in a very general sense, but how "emptiness" relates to the soteriological practices of Buddhism and what it means for these practices to be "empty" of inherent nature. It is argued that this situates Nāgārjuna's philosophy within a highly critical, self-reflective movement in the Buddhist tradition. (shrink)

This volume constitutes the first collection of essays exploring the implications of process philosophy for social thought. Process philosophy is a product of the twentieth century, but its Platonic roots relate it to one of the prime initiators of Western philosophical thinking. Alfred North Whitehead originated the style of thinking that subsequently has been termed "process philosophy.".

This article seeks to broaden contemporary scholarship on the Lotus Sūtra by arguing that it is a philosophically critical, self-reflective text struggling with problems of truth in Buddhist discourse. While all Lotus Sūtra scholars agree that the doctrine of skillful means is a central teaching in the text, there is a common tendency to frame skillful means as a passive vehicle (or ‘means’) for expressing truth rather than an active philosophical critique of truth. This article argues that the Lotus Sūtra (...) uses skillful means as a distinct form of criticism within a larger debate over the nature and efficacy of Buddhist practice, and that it raises important issues about truth that are shared by other important Buddhist thinkers and texts such as Nāgārjuna, Lin-chi and the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa. It analyzes key passages and parables without reducing the ethical teachings of the Lotus Sūtra to simplistic versions of utilitarianism, paternalism, or relativism, and without dissolving the critical elements that make the Lotus Sūtra a genuinely philosophically interesting text. (shrink)

The role of "skillful means" is examined in relation to the important Mahāyāna philosopher Nāgārjuna, and it is argued that the doctrine of "emptiness" is best understood as a critical reflection on the nature of Buddhist praxis. Whereas traditional Western scholarship sees Nāgārjuna as struggling with certain metaphysical problems, a "skillful means" reading situates his philosophy within a debate about the nature and efficacy of Buddhist practice. Thus, a "skillful means" reading of Nāgārjuna does not ask what it means for (...) causality, the self, or consciousness to be "empty" in a very general sense, but how "emptiness" relates to the soteriological practices of Buddhism and what it means for these practices to be "empty" of inherent nature. It is argued that this situates Nāgārjuna's philosophy within a highly critical, self-reflective movement in the Buddhist tradition. (shrink)

Features of gait are determined at multiple levels, from the selection of the gait itself (e.g. walk or run) through the specific parameters utilized (stride length, frequency, etc.) to the pattern of muscular excitation. The ultimate choices are neurally determined, but what is involved with that decision process? Human locomotion appears stereotyped not so much because the pattern is predetermined, but because these movement patterns are good solutions for providing movement utilizing the machinery available to the individual (the legs and (...) their requisite components). Under different circumstances the appropriate solution may differ broadly (different gait) or subtly (different parameters). Interpretation of the neural decision making process would benefit from understanding the influences that determine the selection of the appropriate solution in any set of circumstances, including that of normal conditions. In this review we survey an array of studies that point to energetic cost as a key input to the gait coordination system, and not just an outcome of the gait pattern implemented. We then use that information to rigorously define the construct proposed by Sparrow and Newell (1998) where the effects of environment, organism and task act as constraints determining the solution set available, and the coordination pattern is then implemented under a pressure for energetic economy. Environment is defined in terms of affordances based on the ecological psychology definition of the concept and organism is defined as classic morphology and physiology based capabilities. We rely on a novel conceptualization of task that recognizes that the task goal needs to be separated from the mechanisms that achieve the goal if the motivation behind the selection of the mechanism strategy is to be exposed and understood. This reformulation of the Sparrow and Newell construct is then linked to the proposed pressure for economy by considering it as an optimization problem, where the most readily selected gait strategy will be that which achieves the task goal at (or near) the energetic minimum. (shrink)

In the first chapter of his book Logical Foundations of Probability, Rudolf Carnap introduced and endorsed a philosophical methodology which he called the method of ‘explication’. P.F. Strawson took issue with this methodology, but it is currently undergoing a revival. In a series of articles, Patrick Maher has recently argued that explication is an appropriate method for ‘formal epistemology’, has defended it against Strawson’s objection, and has himself put it to work in the philosophy of science in further clarification of (...) the very concepts on which Carnap originally used it (degree of confirmation, and probability), as well as some concepts to which Carnap did not apply it (such as justified degree of belief). We shall outline Carnap’s original idea, plus Maher’s recent application of such a methodology, and then seek to show that the problem Strawson raised for it has not been dealt with. The method is indeed, we argue, problematic and therefore not obviously superior to the ‘descriptive’ method associated with Strawson. Our targets will not only be Carnapians, though, for what we shall say also bears negatively on a project that Paul Horwich has pursued under the name ‘therapeutic’, or ‘Wittgensteinian’ Bayesianism. Finally, explication, as we shall suggest and as Carnap recognised, is not the only route to philosophical enlightenment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Nāgārjuna and the Doctrine of "Skillful Means"John SchroederAlthough a number of Buddhist scholars have examined the doctrine of "skill-in-means" (upāya-kauśalya) in Mahāyāna Buddhist literature, it is surprising that no one has yet developed this important concept in relation to Nāgārjuna. Given that upāya is a central doctrine in the early Mahāyāna texts, and given that Nāgārjuna is a central philosopher of this tradition, it is unfortunate that scholars (...) pay little attention to how upāya influenced Nāgārjuna's thought. Michael Pye's Skilful Means is the only significant study of upāya to date, and it notes how scholars consistently overlook its importance:'Nirvāṇa;, 'bodhisattva', 'emptiness' (Skt. śūnyatā) and so on have all been considered in this way and that, but apart from occasional references and brief definitions 'skilful means' has scarcely been attended to at all. A concept which has been used to explain the very existence of Buddhism as a functioning religious system demands closer attention.(Pye 1978, p. 2)This lack of attention to upāya certainly applies to Nāgārjuna, who is usually depicted in the West as someone engaged in a metaphysical dispute. According to most Western scholars, Nāgārjuna not only does metaphysics but actually believes that liberation depends on it. Whether he is depicted as a conventionalist, an absolutist, a nihilist, or a deconstructionist, and whether or not his dialectic of "emptiness" (śūnyatā) undermines all positive philosophical positions, it is commonly assumed that Nāgārjuna is dealing with important metaphysical problems and that he thinks Buddhist praxis is somehow incomplete without it.If we read Nāgārjuna as primarily concerned with upāya, however, then this way of framing his project is mistaken. What is interesting about upāya is that it has little in common with traditional Western metaphysics: it is not concerned with the nature of space and time, causality, personal identity, or consciousness, and it resists the tendency to conceptualize liberation apart from Buddhist praxis. To think otherwise is to assume that the Dharma can be abstracted from its soteriological and rhetorical context and that Buddhism can be preached without any particular audience in mind. Most contemporary Western Nāgārjuna scholars adopt this unskillful position by privileging metaphysics over praxis and by telling us that liberation requires a correct understanding of certain metaphysical problems. Given the Buddhist insistence on the indispensable nature of practice, however, and given Nāgārjuna's own position within the Mahāyāna tradition, it is highly unlikely that he is raising traditional metaphysical questions, and even more unlikely that he thinks that Buddhist soteriology depends on it. [End Page 559]The purpose of this article, then, is to offer a different account of Nāgārjuna from the one that is found in contemporary Western scholarship. While most scholars relate Nāgārjuna to metaphysics and wonder how "emptiness" undermines all traditional philosophical views and doctrines, a "skillful means" reading will relate Nāgārjuna's philosophy solely to issues of Buddhist practice. It will not ask what it means for causality, truth, the self, or consciousness to be "empty" in a very general sense, but how "emptiness" relates to the soteriological practices of Buddhism and what it means for those practices to be "empty" of inherent nature.Contrary to what one may think, this does not turn Nāgārjuna into a non-philosopher. "Skill-in-means" is philosophy, albeit in a different sense from the way it is traditionally conceived. Western philosophy traditionally favors theoretical reflection over praxis and devotes most of its intellectual effort to solving metaphysical problems, often with the assumption that these problems need to be solved in order to live a meaningful life. What distinguishes the doctrine of upāya (and perhaps the entire Buddhist tradition) from this approach is that it shuns any attempt to understand Buddhism apart from its practices. Taking its cue from the Buddha's refusal to speculate on non-soteriological problems, upāya rejects the idea that metaphysics precedes praxis or that liberation requires theoretical speculation. It... (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap introduced and endorsed a philosophical methodology which he called the method of ‘explication’. P.F. Strawson took issue with this methodology, but it is currently undergoing a revival. In a series of articles, Patrick Maher has recently argued that explication is an appropriate method for ‘formal epistemology’, has defended it against Strawson’s objection, and has himself put it to work in the philosophy of science in further clarification of the very concepts on which Carnap originally used it (degree of (...) confirmation, and probability), as well as some concepts to which Carnap did not apply it (such as justified degree of belief. We outline Carnap’s original idea, plus Maher’s recent application of such a methodology, and then seek to show that the problem Strawson raised for it has not been dealt with. The method is indeed, we argue, problematic and therefore not obviously superior to the ‘descriptive’ method associated with Strawson. (shrink)

The phenomenon of disagreement has recently been brought into focus by the debate between contextualists and relativist invariantists about epistemic expressions such as ‘might’, ‘probably’, indicative conditionals, and the deontic ‘ought’. Against the orthodox contextualist view, it has been argued that an invariantist account can better explain apparent disagreements across contexts by appeal to the incompatibility of the propositions expressed in those contexts. This paper introduces an important and underappreciated phenomenon associated with epistemic expressions — a phenomenon that we call (...) reversibility. We argue that the invariantist account of disagreement is incompatible with reversibility, and we go on to show that reversible sentences cast doubt on the putative data about disagreement, even without assuming invariantism. Our argument therefore undermines much of the motivation for invariantism, and provides a new source for constraints on the proper explanation of purported data about disagreement. (shrink)

How are the teachings of a thirteenth-century master relevant today? Twenty contemporary writers unpack Dogen's words and show how we can still find meaning in his teachings. Engaging Dogen's Zen is a practice oriented study of Shushogi (a canonical distillation of Dogen's thought used as a primer in the Soto School of Zen) and Fukanzazengi (Dogen's essential text on the practice of "just sitting," a text recited daily in the Soto School of Zen). It is also a study of the (...) entire self. Here, the principles of Soto Zen practice are unpacked and explained by leading contemporary Buddhists from the living tradition--monks, priests, academics, and community teachers. Tackling Dogen's approach to key issues, such as the preeminence of shikantaza, universal buddha nature, and what it means to be a Mahayana Buddhist, the contributors to the volume help Zen practitioners and any who are trying to deepen their lives to appreciate better the teachings of Soto Zen and make these teachings part of their lives. By revisiting what remains precious in Shushogi and Fukanzazengi, we let them breathe just as we learn to breathe in zazen. We find that Soto practice not only engages Dogen and Sakyamuni, but all of our sisters and brothers, and indeed the great earth itself. Includes essays from Kosho Itagaki, Taigen Dan Leighton, Tenshin Charles Fletcher, Shudo Brian Schroeder, Glen A. Mazis, David Loy, Drew Leder, Steven DeCaroli, Steve Bein, John Maraldo, Michael Schwartz, Tetsuzen Jason M. Wirth, Leah Kalmanson, Erin Jien McCarthy, Dainen David Putney, Steven Heine, Graham Parkes, Mark Unno, Shudo Brian Schroeder, and Kanpu Bret W. Davis. (shrink)

According to a naïve view sometimes apparent in the writings of moral philosophers, ‘ought’ often expresses a relation between agents and actions – the relation that obtains between an agent and an action when that action is what that agent ought to do. It is not part of this naïve view that ‘ought’ always expresses this relation – on the contrary, adherents of the naïve view are happy to allow that ‘ought’ also has an epistemic sense, on which it means, (...) roughly, that some proposition is likely to be the case, and adherents of the naïve view are also typically happy to allow that ‘ought’ also has an evaluative sense, on which it means, roughly, that were things ideal, some proposition would be the case.1 What is important to the naïve view is not that these other senses of ‘ought’ do not exist, but rather that they are not exhaustive – for what they leave out, is the important deliberative sense of ‘ought’, which is the central subject of moral inquiry about what we ought to do and why – and it is this deliberative sense of ‘ought’ which the naïve view understands to express a relation between agents and actions.2 In contrast, logically and linguistically sophisticated philosophers – with a few notable exceptions3 – have rejected this naïve view. According to a dominant perspective in the interpretation of deontic logic and in linguistic semantics, for example, articulated by Roderick Chisholm (1964) and Bernard Williams (1981) in philosophy and in the dominant paradigm in linguistic semantics as articulated in particular by.. (shrink)

Several authors have recently endorsed the thesis that there is what has been called pragmatic encroachment on knowledge—in other words, that two people who are in the same situation with respect to truth-related factors may differ in whether they know something, due to a difference in their practical circumstances. This paper aims not to defend this thesis, but to explore how it could be true. What I aim to do, is to show how practical factors could play a role in (...) defeating knowledge by defeating epistemic rationality—the very kind of rationality that is entailed by knowledge, and in which Pascalian considerations do not play any role—even though epistemic rationality consists in having adequate evidence. (shrink)

In the 1960s, Peter Geach and John Searle independently posed an important objection to the wide class of 'noncognitivist' metaethical views that had at that time been dominant and widely defended for a quarter of a century. The problems raised by that objection have come to be known in the literature as the Frege-Geach Problem, because of Geach's attribution of the objection to Frege's distinction between content and assertoric force, and the problem has since occupied a great deal of (...) the attention both of defenders of broadly noncognitivist views, and of their critics. In this article I explain Geach and Searle's historical objections, and put the subsequent discussion into dialectical context, paying some attention to the developments along the way and how they have enhanced our overall understanding of the problem. The article covers a lot of territory, so we will only be able to see the highlights, along the way. For further reading, see the Works Cited. (shrink)

Next SectionIn a recent article in this journal, John Skorupski alleges that the expressivist view developed in Being For fails on its own terms. However, in order to set up his criticism of my book, he helps himself to the very assumption that it is the main contribution of my book to show how to reject. It is hardly a problem for me that you can re-create the problem I showed how to solve by making the very assumption that (...) I showed led to the problem. This article illustrates what might have led to Skorupski's confusion. (shrink)

Dying before one’s time has been a prominent theme in classic literature and poetry. Catherine Linton’s youthful death in Wuthering Heights leaves behind a bereft Heathcliff and generations of mourning readers. The author herself, Emily Brontë, died young from tuberculosis. John Keats’ Ode on Melancholy captures the transitory beauty of 19th century human lives too often ravished by early death. Keats also died of tuberculosis, aged 25. “The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew, died on the promise of (...) the fruit” is how Percy Bysshe Shelley expressed his grief over Keats’ death. Emily Dickinson wrote So Has a Daisy Vanished, being driven into depression by the early loss of loved ones from typhoid and tuberculosis. (shrink)

It is widely thought that Bayesian confirmation theory has provided a solution to Hempel's Paradox (the Ravens Paradox). I discuss one well‐known example of this approach, by John Mackie, and argue that it is unconvincing. I then suggest an alternative solution, which shows that the Bayesian approach is altogether mistaken. Nicod's Condition should be rejected because a generalisation is not confirmed by any of its instances if it is not law‐like. And even law‐like non‐basic empirical generalisations, which are expressions (...) of assumed underlying causal regularities, are not so confirmed if they are absurd in the light of our causal background knowledge or if their instances are not also possible instances of the relevant causal claim. (shrink)

Taking up John of Salisbury’s dictum that we read ancient texts to improve our eyesight, this article returns to an “old” book for “new” insight into the perennial philosophical problem of visual perception. A careful reading of Berkeley’s essay on vision improves our eyesight in at least four ways: First, it reminds us that the most interesting aspects of visual perception are not “primary” but “derivative.” Second, it reminds us that our relationship with the world is an interactive process (...) of making connections and proposes some ways in which those connections and the process of making them might be brought to consciousness and subjected to critical examination. Third, it reminds us of the extent to which making connections is a linguistic process: we live in language as surely as we live in the world, and the processes by which we take our places in the world are forms of language. Fourth, it introduces a concept of “levels” and movement between them that is particularly important to computational models that may result in nonhuman analogues of human vision. (shrink)

Taking up John of Salisbury’s dictum that we read ancient texts to improve our eyesight, this article returns to an “old” book for “new” insight into the perennial philosophical problem of visual perception. A careful reading of Berkeley’s essay on vision improves our eyesight in at least four ways: First, it reminds us that the most interesting aspects of visual perception are not “primary” but “derivative.” Second, it reminds us that our relationship with the world is an interactive process (...) of making connections and proposes some ways in which those connections and the process of making them might be brought to consciousness and subjected to critical examination. Third, it reminds us of the extent to which making connections is a linguistic process: we live in language as surely as we live in the world, and the processes by which we take our places in the world are forms of language. Fourth, it introduces a concept of “levels” and movement between them that is particularly important to computational models that may result in nonhuman analogues of human vision. (shrink)

This essay considers the relation between two fundamentally different notions of place—the Greek concept of χώρα and the Japanese concept of basho 場所—in an effort to address the question of a possible “other beginning” to philosophy by rethinking the relation between nature and the elemental. Taking up a cross-cultural comparative approach, ancient through contemporary Eastern and Western sources are considered. Central to this endeavor is reflection on the concept of the between through an engagement between, on the one hand, Plato, (...) Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Edward Casey, and John Sallis, and on the other, Eihei Dōgen, Nishida Kitarō, and Watsuji Tetsurō. (shrink)

The first third of John Pollock’s Thinking about Acting is on the topics of pleasure, desire, and preference, and these topics are the ones on which this paper focuses. I review Pollock’s position and argue that it has at least one substantial strength (it elegantly demonstrates that desires must be more fundamental than preferences, and embraces this conclusion wholeheartedly) and at least one substantial weakness (it holds to a form of psychological hedonism without convincingly answering the philosophical or empirical (...) objections that might be raised). (shrink)

Philosophers have often noted a contrast between practical and theoretical reasons when it comes to cases involving equally balanced reasons. When there are strong practical reasons for A-ing, and equally strong practical reasons for some incompatible option, B-ing, the agent is permitted to make an arbitrary choice between them, having sufficient reason to A and sufficient reason to B. But when there is strong evidence for P and equally strong evidence for ~ P, one isn’t permitted to simply believe one (...) or the other. Instead, one must withhold belief, neither believing that P nor believing that ~ P. This paper examines what explains this contrast, focusing in particular on a proposal recently developed by Mark Schroeder across several papers. Schroeder aims to explain the contrast by an appeal to non-evidential, epistemic reasons against belief. But, I argue, it’s not clear exactly what those reasons are, nor how those reasons are to be weighed against evidential reasons. Despite these challenges, I argue that there are grounds for optimism that the contrast can be explained within the broad framework Schroeder provides, and I aim to provide resources to meet the aforementioned challenges. (shrink)

I discuss two arguments against the view that reasons are propositions. I consider responses to each argument, including recent responses due to Mark Schroeder, and suggest further responses of my own. In each case, the discussion proceeds by comparing reasons to answers and goals.

This volume discusses Wittgenstein’s work, as well as his oeuvre in general, and its implications for the nature of reason. Investigates the nature of reason which has always been a topic at the very heart of Western philosophy Analyses how Wittgenstein raised crucial questions about the subject - most notably in his critique of Frazer’s _Golden Bough_, his discussions of various philosophical aspects of religion, and the famous ‘rule-following considerations’ from his _Philosophical Investigations_ Contributors include prominent Wittgenstein scholars from the (...) UK and continental Europe including Hanjo Glock, Genia Schönbaumsfeld, Severin Schroeder Joachim Schulte and Crispin Wright Contains a translation of an important paper by the French Wittgenstein scholar Jacques Bouveresse, alongside six new papers by other contributors. (shrink)

Contents: John A. HALL and Ian JARVIE: Preface. John A. HALL and Ian JARVIE: The Life and Times of Ernest Gellner. PART 1 INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND. Ji_i MUSIL: The Prague Roots of Ernest Gellner's Thinking. Chris HANN: Gellner on Malinowski: Words and Things in Central Europe. Tamara DRAGADZE: Ernest Gellner in the Soviet East. PART 2 NATIONS AND NATIONALISM. Brendan O'LEARY: On the Nature of Nationalism: An Appraisal of Ernest Gellner's Writings on Nationalism. Kenneth MINOGUE: Ernest Gellner and the (...) Dangers of Theorising Nationalism. Anthony D. SMITH: History and Modernity: Reflection on the Theory of Nationalism. Michael MANN: The Emergence of Modern European Nationalism. Nicholas STARGARDT: Gellner's Nationalism: The Spirit of Modernisation? PART 3 PATTERNS OF DEVELOPMENT. Peter BURKE: Reflections on the History of Encyclopaedias. Alan MACFARLANE: Ernest Gellner and the Escape to Modernity. Ronald DORE: Sovereign Individuals. Shmuel EISENSTADT: Japan: Non-Axial Modernity. Marc FERRO: l'Indépendance Telescopée: De la Décolonisation a l'Impérialisme Multinational. PART 4 ISLAM. Abdellah HAMMOUDI: Segmentarity, Social Stratification, Political Power and Sainthood: Reflections on Gellner's Theses. Henry MUNSON, Jr.: Rethinking Gellner's Segmentary Analysis of Morocco's Ait cAtta. Jean BAECHLER: Sur le charisme. Charles LINDHOLM: Despotism and Democracy: State and Society in the Premodern Middle East. Henry MUNSON, Jr.: Muslim and Jew in Morocco: Reflections on the Distinction between Belief and Behavior. Talal ASAD: The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. PART 5 SCIENCE AND DISENCHANTMENT. Perry ANDERSON: Science, Politics, Enchantment. Ralph SCHROEDER: From the Big Divide to the Rubber Cage: Gellner's Conception of Science and Technology. John DAVIS: Irrationality in Social Life. PART 6 RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSALS. John SKORUPSKI: The Post-Modern Hume: Ernest Gellner's 'Enlightenment Fundamentalism'. John WETTERSTEN: Ernest Gellner: A Wittgensteinian Rationalist. Ian JARVIE: Gellner's Positivism. Raymond BOUDON: Relativising Relativism: When Sociology Refutes the Sociology of Science. Rod AYA: The Devil in Social Anthropology; or, the Empiricist Exorcist; or, the Case Against Cultural Relativism. PART 7 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. William MCNEILL: A Swan Song for British Liberalism? Andrus PARK: Gellner and the Long Trends of History. Eero LOONE: Marx, Gellner, Power. Rosaire LANGLOIS: Coercion, Cognition and Production: Gellner's Challenge to Historical Materialism and Postmodernism. Ernest GELLNER: Reply to Critics. Ian JARVIE: Complete Bibliography of Gellner's Work. Name index. Subject index. (shrink)

What makes two sentences inconsistent? Expressivists understand the meaning of a sentence in terms of the mental state it expresses. In order to explain the inconsistency between two sentences, the expressivist must appeal to some inconsistency feature of the mental states expressed. A simple explanation is that two sentences, e.g., “murder is wrong” and “murder is not wrong” are inconsistent by virtue of expressing mental states that disagree. Schroeder argues that the expressivist lacks a plausible explanation of the disagreement. (...) Baker & Woods argue that Schroeder is wrong. With these authors, I agree that expressivists have an explanation of disagreement, but this does not adequately explain why two sentences are inconsistent. The reason is that two intuitively inconsistent sentences do not necessarily express mental states that disagree. Moreover, assuming that the expressivist gives a structurally identical explanation for moral and non-moral language, the problem generalizes to non-moral language. It is also argued that the problem extends to thought. How expressivists can and should conceive of inconsistency thus remains a challenge. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of eleven essays by Mark Schroeder, including one previously unpublished paper, divided into four parts. Schroeder’s substantive introduction to the volume explains the unifying argumentative thread running through these essays and will be useful even to those who have read the essays separately. The essays themselves are superb. Schroeder’s work is unmatched in its clarity, incisiveness, originality, creativity, and depth. And this volume will leave the reader with a new appreciation for various (...) ways in which assumptions about the structure of normative explanations—particularly about what Schroeder calls the Standard Model Theory—are important to central debates in metaethics. When we provide a Standard Model explanation of why someone ought to perform some action, we show how performing that action is a way or means of doing something else he ought to do ð28Þ. Suppose Mark promises to attend the workshop. Here’s a Standard Model explanation of why Mark ought to attend the workshop: attending the workshop is a way of keeping his promise, and he ought to keep his promise. On this explanation, there’s some further action Mark ought to perform ðkeeping his promiseÞ, and attending the workshop is a way of doing that. (shrink)

Nondescriptivist views in many areas of philosophy have long been associated with the commitment that in contrast to other domains of discourse, there are no propositions in their particular domain. For example, the ‘no truth conditions’ theory of conditionals1 is understood as the view that conditionals don’t express propositions, noncognitivist expressivism in metaethics is understood as advocating the view that there are not really moral propositions,2 and expressivism about epistemic modals is thought of as the view that there is no (...) such thing as the proposition that Jack might be at home, over and above the proposition that Jack is at home.3 Of course, it is nearly always acknowledged that advocates of a nondescriptivist theory need not deny that there are conditional, moral, or modal propositions ‘at the end of the day’ – for if they also endorse a deflationary reading of talk about propositions, as famously advocated by Simon Blackburn, then they can employ such deflationary talk just as much as the rest of us. They just don’t appeal to propositions to do any of the work in their theories. Rather, they ‘earn the right’ to talk about propositions.4 It is the aim of this paper to upset this way of thinking about the proper attitude of nondescriptivists toward propositions, and to advocate a more constructive and in some ways more radical alternative on behalf of the nondescriptivist. I will begin by introducing and developing a set of problems that are faced by any nondescriptivist theory which tries to do without propositions. All of these problems are easily solved by any view which postulates propositions across the board, but none of them are solved by merely deflationary talk about propositions – their most promising solutions require propositions to do real theoretical work, and therefore the problems themselves remind us of and illustrate some of the important reasons why it is worth positing propositions in the first place.. (shrink)

Particularists in ethics emphasize that the normative is holistic, and invite us to infer with them that it therefore defies generalization. This has been supposed to present an obstacle to traditional moral theorizing, to have striking implications for moral epistemology and moral deliberation, and to rule out reductive theories of the normative, making it a bold and important thesis across the areas of normative theory, moral epistemology, moral psychology, and normative metaphysics. Though particularists emphasize the importance of the holism of (...) the normative, however, it is not something that they have been able to explain. In this paper I’ll show how to use a small number of simple and, I’ll argue, independently compelling assumptions in order to both predict and explain the holistic features of the normative with respect to the non-normative. The basic idea of the paper is simple. It is that normative claims are holistic because they are general, rather than because they defy generalization. (shrink)

The author wishes to add the following correction to his paper published in Philosophies [1]:The repeated fragment from lines 13–18 and part of 19 on page 69 should be deleted [...].

The author wishes to add the following correction to his paper published in Philosophies [1]:The repeated fragment from lines 13–18 and part of 19 on page 69 should be deleted [...].

Analogy belongs to the class of concepts notorious for a variety of definitions generating continuing disputes about their preferred understanding. Analogy is typically defined by or at least associated with similarity, but as long as similarity remains undefined this association does not eliminate ambiguity. In this paper, analogy is considered synonymous with a slightly generalized mathematical concept of similarity which under the name of tolerance relation has been the subject of extensive studies over several decades. In this approach, analogy can (...) be mathematically formalized in terms of the sequence of binary relations of increased generality, from the identity, equivalence, tolerance, to weak tolerance relations. Each of these relations has cryptomorphic presentations relevant to the study of analogy. The formalism requires only two assumptions which are satisfied in all of the earlier attempts to formulate adequate definitions which met expectations of the intuitive use of the word analogy in general contexts. The mathematical formalism presented here permits theoretical analysis of analogy in the contrasting comparison with abstraction, showing its higher level of complexity, providing a precise methodology for its study and informing philosophical reflection. Also, arguments are presented for the legitimate expectation that better understanding of analogy can help mathematics in establishing a unified and universal concept of a structure. (shrink)