InThe Matter of Capital, Christopher Nealon offers a distinctive revisionary account of American poetry written in the wake of the ideological retreats of Ezra Pound and W.H. Auden around the time of the Second World War. Nealon argues that American verse of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries was profoundly influenced by an unfolding context of capitalist development and crisis, in ways that have not been fully accounted for in orthodox accounts of recent literary history. Ruth Jennison’sThe Zukofsky Era: (...) Modernity, Margins, and the Avant-Gardeseeks similarly to highlight the centrality of leftist critiques of capitalism in modern American poetry. Her focus is the Objectivist group of poets, in particular Louis Zukofsky, a Jewish-American Marxist often regarded as the major successor to Pound in the interwar years. Jennison applies the theory of ‘combined and uneven development’ to the 1930s work of Zukofsky and his circle. (shrink)

Kolodny and MacFarlane have made a pioneering contribution to our understanding of how the interpretation of deontic modals can be sensitive to evidence and information. But integrating the discussion of information-sensitivity into the standard Kratzerian framework for modals suggests ways of capturing the relevant data without treating deontic modals as “informational modals” in their sense. I show that though one such way of capturing the data within the standard semantics fails, an alternative does not. Nevertheless I argue that we have (...) good reasons to adopt an information-sensitive semantics of the general type Kolodny and MacFarlane describe. Contrary to the standard semantics, relative deontic value between possibilities sometimes depends on which possibilities are live. I develop an ordering semantics for deontic modals that captures this point and addresses various complications introduced by integrating the discussion of information-sensitivity into the standard semantic framework. By attending to these complexities, we can also illuminate various roles that information and evidence play in logical arguments, discourse, and deliberation. (shrink)

In Ep. 50, Spinoza argues at length that “someone who calls God one or unique does not have a true idea of God, or is speaking improperly about him.” This text is striking, given the declarations in many writings, including the Ethics, that God is the one, unique substance. While recent commentators have attempted to render Ep. 50 consistent with the rest of Spinoza’s corpus, I instead argue that Spinoza’s stance on God’s oneness evolved over the course of his career. (...) This evolution, which in fact contains a number of twists and turns, is driven not only by consideration of the proper meaning of ‘one’ and ‘unique’ but also by the question of whether God’s essence and God’s existence are numerically identical. Regarding the latter, I argue that Spinoza came to reject this identity claim late in life, and that this explains his final change in viewpoint regarding God’s oneness in Ep. 83. (shrink)

Resumo: Neste ensaio, pretende-se uma aproximação crítica e interpretativa sobre o conceito de “devir negro”, na atualidade, trazido, sobretudo, pelo pensador camaronês Achille Mbembe. Seu pensamento se insere num contexto de fluidez da compreensão desses temas, a partir da lógica capitalista, no continente africano e no mundo. Dessa maneira, buscou-se refletir acerca da constituição do pensamento de Mbembe e da forma como ele compreendeu as práticas de governamentabilidade, na superação da dominação colonial. Defende-se que é preciso afirmar-se negro, para negar (...) o lugar que lhe foi imputado, ou seja, empreender um processo de negação para um “devir”. Portanto, negar-se como “o outro” do “outro”, mas, sim, afirmar-se como seu igual na diferença. Com efeito, a estereotipia negativa contra o negro e o aprofundamento das diferenças entre os grupos étnicos ganham novas e outras dimensões, em função do modo de exploração capitalista.: In this essay, a critical and interpretive aproach to the concept of “devir black” is nowadays brought, above all, from Cameroonian thinker Achille Mbembe. His thinking is part of a context of fluidity in the understanding of these themes based on capitalist logic in the African continent and in the world. In this way, we sought to reflect the constitution of Mbembe’s thought and the way he understood the practices of governance in overcoming colonial domination. It is argued that it is necessary to claim to be black instead of denying the place attributed to it, that is, to undertake a process of denial for a “becoming”. Therefore, to deny yourself as “the other” of the “other”, but rather to assert yourself as your equal in difference. Indeed, the negative stereotypy against blacks and the deepening of differences between ethnic groups, takes on new dimensions, based on the mode of capitalist exploitation. (shrink)

This paper uses Carl Ginet's concept of “disinterested justification” to identify the boundaries of the epistemic authority of courts. It claims that courts exercise this authority only in the “interest-free” zone, in which their determinations of disputed facts’ probabilities can be made and justified on epistemic grounds alone. This is not the case with the “interest-laden” domain, where courts allocate risks of error under conditions of uncertainty. This domain is controlled by the risk-allocating evidentiary rules: burdens of proof, corroboration, hearsay, (...) opinion, character, and others. These rules are driven by moral and political, rather than epistemic, reasons. Their role is to allocate the risk of error among plaintiffs, defendants, and prosecution by setting forth probability thresholds for findings of fact and the criteria for adequacy of the evidence upon which those findings can be made. (shrink)

We present a plural logic that is as expressively strong as it can be without sacrificing axiomatisability, axiomatise it, and use it to chart the expressive limits set by axiomatisability. To the standard apparatus of quantification using singular variables our object-language adds plural variables, a predicate expressing inclusion (is/are/is one of/are among), and a plural definite description operator. Axiomatisability demands that plural variables only occur free, but they have a surprisingly important role. Plural description is not eliminable in favour of (...) quantification; on the contrary, quantification is definable in terms of it. Predicates and functors (function signs) can take plural as well as singular terms as arguments, and both many-valued and single-valued functions are expressible. The system accommodates collective as well as distributive predicates, and the condition for a predicate to be distributive is definable within it; similarly for functors. An essential part of the project is to demonstrate the soundness and completeness of the calculus with respect to a semantics that does without set-theoretic domains and in which the use of settheoretic extensions of predicates and functors is replaced by the sui generis relations and functions for which the extensions were at best artificial surrogates. Our metalanguage is designed to solve the difficulties involved in talking plurally about individuals and about the semantic values of plural items. (shrink)

The most influential philosopher in the analytic tradition of his time, Willard Van Orman Quine changed the way we think about language and its relation to the world. His rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction, his scepticism about modal logic and essentialism, his celebrated theme of the indeterminacy of translation, and his advocacy of naturalism have challenged key assumptions of the prevailing orthodoxy and helped shape the development of much of recent philosophy. This introduction to Quine's philosophical ideas provides philosophers, students (...) and generalists with an authoritative analysis of his lasting contributions to philosophy. Quine's ideas throughout are contrasted with more traditional views, as well as with contemporaries such as Frege, Russell, Carnap, Davidson, Field, Kripke and Chomsky, enabling the reader to grasp a clear sense of the place of Quine's views in twentieth-century philosophy and the important criticisms of them. (shrink)

Yah boo sucks to the grammer wot we lernt in skool! Grammar (and the bad old traditional logic) says that quantifier phrases such as 'nobody', 'everyone', 'all women', 'some men' and 'a man' are in the same category as names such as 'Milly', 'Molly' and 'Mandy'. So, prior to their first corrective lessons, students are awfully muddled, the first and fundamental problem being the Woozle hunt for somebody called 'nobody'. Hoorah for modern logic and logic teachers! The story used to (...) justify our current logics is entirely fictional. The claims about names and quantifier phrases in English are wildly false. Two of the heroes of modern logic, Russell and Hilbert, make the very mistakes which are falsely blamed on traditional logic. The villain, Meinong, turns out to have been working a different patch. Ideas ascribed to traditional grammar are modern inventions. Neither logicians nor grammarians can be trusted to tell the history of either grammar or logic. (shrink)

The essays in this collection are by some of the leading figures in their fields and they touch on the most recent turnings in Quine's work.

Dummctt argues that classical quantification is illegitimate when the domain is given as the objects which fall under an indefinitely extensible concept, since in such cases the objects are not the required definite totality. The chief problem in understanding this complex argument is the crucial but unexplained phrase 'definite totality' and the associated claim that it follows from the intuitive notion of set that the objects over which a classical quantifier ranges form a set. 'Definite totality' is best understood as (...) disguised plural talk like Cantor's 'consistent multiplicity', although this does not help in understanding how a totality could be anything other than definite. Moreover, contrary to his claims, Dummett's own notion of set is not intuitive and he does not demystify the set-theoretic paradoxes. In conclusion, it is argued that Dummett's context principle is responsible for the incoherent projection of the haziness of a conception of some objects onto reality. (shrink)

This article argues that considerations about the role and predictability of intellectual innovation make the protection of intellectual property morally obligatory even when it greatly reduces short-term welfare. Since the provision of good new ideas is the only productive input not subject to decreasing marginal productivity, welfarist considerations require that no impediment to its maximal provision be erected and the potentially substantial welfare losses imposed by a patent system be mitigated by taxation of other sources of wealth and income. Key (...) Words: patent system • welfarism • decreasing marginal productivity. (shrink)

Dummctt argues that classical quantification is illegitimate when the domain is given as the objects which fall under an indefinitely extensible concept, since in such cases the objects are not the required definite totality. The chief problem in understanding this complex argument is the crucial but unexplained phrase 'definite totality' and the associated claim that it follows from the intuitive notion of set that the objects over which a classical quantifier ranges form a set. 'Definite totality' is best understood as (...) disguised plural talk like Cantor's 'consistent multiplicity', although this does not help in understanding how a totality could be anything other than definite. Moreover, contrary to his claims, Dummett's own notion of set is not intuitive and he does not demystify the set-theoretic paradoxes. In conclusion, it is argued that Dummett's context principle is responsible for the incoherent projection of the haziness of a conception of some objects onto reality. (shrink)

The fundamental thesis of David Lewis's "Parts of Classes" is that the nonempty subsets of a set are mereological parts of it. This paper shows that Lewis's considerations in favor of this thesis are unpersuasive. First, common speech provides no support. Second, the formal analogy between mereology and the Boolean algebra of sets can be explained without accepting the thesis. Third, it is very doubtful that the thesis is fruitful. Certainly, Lewis's claim that it helps us understand set theory is (...) unwarranted. (shrink)

Many philosophers call themselves ‘naturalists’ because they believe theism is incompatible with science. However, many also hold that science is compatible with many other theistic beliefs about morality, free will, the mind, and the meaning of life. Those naturalists who reject these other beliefs need a different label for their view. This article recommends the term ‘scientism’.

The social sciences need to take seriously their status as divisions of biology. As such they need to recognize the central role of Darwinian processes in all the phenomena they seek to explain. An argument for this claim is formulated in terms of a small number of relatively precise premises that focus on the nature of the kinds and taxonomies of all the social sciences. The analytical taxonomies of all the social sciences are shown to require a Darwinian approach to (...) human affairs, though not a nativist or genetically driven theory by any means. Non-genetic Darwinian processes have the fundamental role on all human affairs. I expound a general account of how Darwinian processes operate in human affairs by selecting for strategies and sets of strategies individuals and groups employ. I conclude by showing how a great deal of social science can be organized in accordance with Tinbergen’s approach to biological inquiry, an approach required by the fact that the social sciences are all divisions of biology, and in particular the studies of one particular biological species. (shrink)

The lyric is a form or genre of poetry often intimately related to subjectivity. But is a lyricism divested of the subject possible? By examining the philosophical refl ections of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe upon lyricism, poetry, and their relation to subjectivity, this article explicates how an impersonal lyricism is not only possible, but perhaps necessary. If we wish to do justice to the phrasing or saying of poetic language, then we must endeavour to think the displacement of the subject in and (...) by the very language that the poem expresses. Following Lacoue-Labarthe, this article explores the paradoxical turn of lyricism—that it is bound to the subject, but not to its personal expression; rather, to its disappearance, its displacement, in the expression of language itself. By tracing a sketch of Lacoue-Labarthe’s poetics, relating this thought to the lyrical theories of Hamburger and Culler, and providing a brief explication of one of Lacoue-Labarthe’s “poetic” writings, lyricism is shown to be the testament to the disappearance of the subject, the remainder of a disappearance already passed insofar as the poem remains. What remains is that the lyrical subject would be no “subject” at all—only language itself, intimating its own diction. (shrink)

Geach's account of the Aristotelian logic of categorical sentences supplemented the views shared by Frege, Russell, Quine and others. I argue that this particular predicate logic approach and Geach's points apply to only one variety of natural language categorical sentences. For example, it takes the universal categorical as a universal conditional “If anything is a man, then it is mortal”. A different natural language form can and should be invoked: “Every man is a mortal.” Employing special restricted quantifiers in a (...) version of predicate logic, we justify a full square of opposition and the rules of quality and quantity that Geach rejected. (shrink)

Starting with the French Revolution Massacres and Morality studies mass killing as perpetrated by states. In particular it examines the role that civilian immunity has played in shaping the behaviour of perpetrators and how international society has responded.

Alex Blum ABSTRACT: We show, that given two fundamental theses of Kripke, no statement of the form ‘‘a=b’ is necessarily true’, is true, if ‘a’ and ‘b’ are distinct rigid designators. Download PDF.

This paper argues that nothing that has been discovered in the increasingly complex delails of gene regulation has provided any grounds to retract or qualify Crick's version of the central dogma. In particular it defends the role of the genes as the sole bearers of information, and argues that the mechanism of epigenetic modification of the DNA is but another vindication of Crick's version of the central dogma. The paper shows that arguments of C.K. Waters for the distinctive causual role (...) of the genes are equivalent in important respects to the present ones and concludes with a defense of the informational role of the genes against an argument from trans-actĭng genetic regulation due to Stotz. (shrink)

This article explores three distinct approaches to politics identified by Deleuze and Guattari. I argue that they consistently privilege a 'problematic' approach entailing individuals and associations establishing norms on the basis of the potential they possess within a concrete situation, and that this implies resistance to both the 'theorematic' politics they associate with statist philosophy and struggles aiming to alter the 'axiomatic' determination induced by global forces of capital. While this resistance necessarily proceeds in relation to established notions of identity (...) and value, it must also do more than aim for the establishment of particular institutional 'constants,' including particular democratic procedures and human rights. (shrink)

In “Mind, matter and metabolism,” Godfrey-Smith’s objective is to “develop a picture” in which, first, the basis of living activity in physical processes “makes sense,” second, the basis of proto-cognitive activity in living activity “makes sense” and third, “the basis of subjective experience in metabolically situated cognitive processes also makes sense.” show that he fails to attain all three of these objectives, largely owing to the nature and modularization of metabolism.

The rising cost of the opioid antagonist and overdose reversal agent naloxone is an urgent public health problem. The recent and dramatic price increase of Evzio, a naloxone auto-injector produced by Kaléo, shows how pharmaceutical manufacturers entering the naloxone marketplace rely on market exclusivity guaranteed by the patent system to charge prices at what the market can bear, which can restrict access to life-saving medication. We argue that 28 U.S.C. § 1498, a section of the federal code that allows the (...) government to use patent-protected products for its own purposes in exchange for reasonable compensation, could be used to procure generic naloxone auto-injectors, or at least bring Kaléo to the negotiating table. Precedent exists for the use of § 1498 to procure pharmaceuticals, and it could give meaning to the federal government's recent declaration of a public health emergency around the opioid epidemic, discourage new market entrants from charging exorbitant prices, and yield important public health benefits. (shrink)