Roderick Chisholm

In ‘Brentano’s Methodology as a Path through the Divide’, Röck makes two related claims. Röck argues that there exists a philosophical dilemma between description and logical analysis, and that the current divide between continental phenomenology and analytic philosophy may be seen as a consequence of the dilemma. Röck further argues that Brentano’s work integrates description and logical analysis in a way which ‘can provide a suitable starting point for an equally successful integration of these methods in contemporary philosophy’. Without disputing (...) Röck’s claim about the suitability of Brentano’s work for such an integration, this paper questions by examining the influence of Brentano and his school on early analytic philosophy. As recent scholarship in the history of analytic philosophy demonstrates, contrary to Röck’s contention, many prominent analytic philosophers conversed with Brentano and his school’s conceptions of phenomenological description. (shrink)

The doctrine of agent-causation has been suggested by many interested in defending libertarian theories of free action to provide the conceptual apparatus necessary to make the notion of incompatibility freedom intelligible. In the present essay the conceptual viability of the doctrine of agent-causation will be assessed. It will be argued that agent-causation is, insofar as it is irreducible to event-causation, mysterious at best, totally unintelligible at worst. First, the arguments for agent-causation made by such eighteenth-century luminaries as Samuel Clarke and (...) Thomas Reid will be considered alongside the defenses of agent-causation proffered in this century by C.A. Campbell, Roderick Chisholm, and Richard Taylor. It will be shown that the case for agent-causation made by these figures is ultimately unconvincing. Two defenses of agent-causation made within the past ten years will then be taken up for examination and critique. First, Timothy O'Connor's attempt at advancing an unrefined and unrepentant doctrine of agent-causation will be shown to suffer from the same maladies as its predecessors. Next, Randolph Clarke's causal agent-causal theory of free action, which seeks a via media between agent-causal theories of free action and causal theories of action, is examined. Clarke's theory is an attempt at providing an account of how both events and agents qua substances can be the codeterminants of free actions. Despite the improvement of Clarke's theory over more conventional agent-causal theories of free action, it will be shown that agent-causation makes his theory more cumbersome than it needs to be. Clarke is able to get as much mileage out of a causal indeterminacy theory of action that does not require him to posit obscure agent-causes. Finally, a sketch of an alternative theory of free action will be offered. While it may suffer from its own conceptual deficiencies, it may not suffer from the same conceptual problems as agent-causal theories of free action. (shrink)

RODERICK M. CHISHOLM SELF-PROFILE A. My Philosophical Education Academic What brought me into philosophy was an excellent introductory course in the subject ...

Roderick Chisholm has recently developed a view that can be regarded as in large part a modern version of the rational psychology attacked by Kant in his critique of the “paralogisms of pure reason.” Chisholm argues that the self is a substance, that it is not “annexed to” or “placed in” any other being, that it has a certain numerical identity, and that it is directly known in itself—four claims that map fairly easily onto the main themes of Kant’s Paralogisms. (...) At various points Chisholm directs himself against what he takes to be skeptical Kantian considerations against these claims. I happen to believe most of these claims are true and that even Kant was ultimately committed to them, but what I shall advance here is simply the interpretive thesis that Chisholm’s arguments for these claims are weak and their weakness is well exposed precisely by considerations encouraged by Kant’s discussion of the paralogisms. In other words, there is still more work to be done if one desires a contemporary defense of rational psychology. (shrink)

The fact that boundaries are ontologically dependent entities is agreed by Franz Brentano and Roderick Chisholm. This article studies both authors as a single metaphysical account about boundaries. The Brentano-Chisholm theory understands that boundaries and the objects to which they belong hold a mutual relationship of ontological dependence: the existence of a boundary depends upon a continuum of higher spatial dimensionality, but also is a conditio sine qua non for the existence of a continuum. Although the view that ordinary material (...) objects and their boundaries (or surfaces) ontologically depend on each other is correct, it does not grasp their asymmetric relationship: while the existence of a surface rigidly depends upon the existence of the very object it belongs to, the existence of a physical object generically depends upon having some surface. In modal terms, both are two kinds of de re ontological dependence that this article tries to distinguish. (shrink)

The article provides a critical overview of the main theses contained in the book The First Person by Roderick Chisholm. Chisholm's main thesis is that of the priority of the reference de se over reference de re. Chisholm develops firstly a theory of properties according to which these must be able to remain unexemplified. This excludes from the outset that we can reinterpret the indexical term “I” (the first person) in the sense of a property, since an indexical term always (...) refers to an existing particular object, so that the property in question would necessarily be exemplified. The sentences relating to the first person (de se) are not propositions but attributions, from which one can derive both the sentences de re as well as sentences de dicto (intentional attitudes). These sentences can have as subjects persons other than the “I”. (shrink)

This paper explores a particularist element in the theory of method of Imre Lakatos, who appealed to the value-judgements of élite scientists in the appraisal of competing theories of method. The role played by such value-judgements is strongly reminiscent of the epistemological particularism of Roderick Chisholm. Despite the existence of a clear parallel between the particularist approaches of both authors, it is argued that Lakatos’s approach is subject to a weakness that does not affect the approach of Chisholm.

In this paper I focus on the conditions that have to be met for Chisholm’s Paradox (CP) to occur. My claim is that identity and structure are notions closely related to each other. I propose a discussion in which the minimal framework for CP is set, then analyze the paradox in terms of S5, and suggest that in order to capture the core of the paradox one should use a dynamic valuation function for the model. Identity appears, at this point, (...) to be dependent upon a structuralist point of view. (shrink)

In the intellectual autobiography that opens this book, Chisholm divides philosophers into “drones” and “commentators,” placing himself in the first group. As a drone, Chisholm proposed solutions to philosophical problems and asked his students and colleagues to try to refute him. He reports that they often did, sending him back to the drawing board. Chisholm’s wry self-description says much about his manner as well as his method. A more pretentious philosopher might have spoken of his dogged search for philosophical truth (...) in an age when many have come to disparage that quest. (shrink)

The work of the author's serious revisions of his earlier analyses of belief-locutions, this crisply argued essay has an impressive range and force, with important ramifications for ontology, epistemology, and theory of reference. Chisholm takes as the primary form of belief and reference the non-propositional belief expressed in the locution "he believes himself to be..." and explicates this basic sort of belief without recourse to such "impure" Platonic entities as indexical properties and singular propositions. In the opening chapter and appendix, (...) Chisholm outlines his own "purified" Platonic ontology. In addition to individual things, their parts, aggregates, and boundaries, he countenances only properties and states of affairs. "Times," "possible worlds," and propositions are reducible to states of affairs. (shrink)

In this dissertation we examine Roderick Chisholm's philosophy as it relates to problems of the self. His views regarding the observability of the self, personal identity and freedom and his arguments for these views are discussed, examined and evaluated. ;Although Chisholm's positions on these three issues are merely contingently related, they exhibit a common feature which characterizes Chisholm's entire philosophy as it relates to the self--the attempt to refute positions which traditionally have been associated with empiricism by employing an epistemology (...) modified by the incorporation of a metaphilosophy of common sense, i.e, the view that the basic premises with which we begin our philosophical inquiries should be those propositions which we "presuppose in our ordinary activity" and that such propositions "should be regarded as innocent, epistemically, until we have positive reason for thinking them guilty" . ;Contained within the list of propositions which Chisholm believes to be presupposed in our ordinary activity are those which support the three central tenets of Chisholm's philosophy of the self: the self is directly observable in the sense that there are self-presenting states which the person has and through which the person can know himself to have certain properties; the person remains strictly identical over time; and the person is an agent capable of freely initiating at least some of his actions. ;These tenets are opposed to those positions which historically have been associated with empiricism: the non-observability of the self or subject of experience; the analyzability of the self into a series of temporary "person-stages"; and the non-existence of any type of causation other than event causation . ;As will soon become evident, while Chisholm's arguments frequently do not establish their intended conclusions, these conclusions sometimes can be supported by revising his arguments or by constructing new arguments with materials either taken from or logically compatible with Chisholm's philosophical corpus. (shrink)

I discuss the treatment by Chisholm of the problem posed by the fact that one can produce some neuro-physiological changes by moving a limb, namely the ones which cause the motions. I concentrate largely on the treatment Chisholm gave to this question before Person and Object, and I compare it with von Wright's discussion of it, I conclude that there are correct elements about both but that both are unsatisfactory, Chisholm's because it entails that we must know something which we (...) manifestly need not know when we move. (shrink)