A book review on Riku Juti's book "Johdatus Metafysiikkaan" (An Introduction to Metaphysics).

In Bertrand Russell’s "The Principles of Mathematics" and related works, the notion of a proposition plays an important role; it is by analyzing propositions,showing what kinds of constituents they have, that Russell arrives at his core logical concepts. At this time, his conception of proposition contains both a conventional and an unconventional part. The former is the view that propositions are the ultimate truth-bearers; the latter is the view that the constituents of propositions are “worldly” entities. In the latter respect, (...) Russellian propositions are akin to states-of-affairs on some robust understanding of these entities. The idea of Russellian propositions is well known, at least in outline. Not so well known is his treatment of truth, which nevertheless grows directly out of this notion of proposition. For the early Russell, the import of truth is primarily metaphysical, rather than semantic; reversing the usual direction of explanation, he holds that truth is explanatory of what is the case rather than vice versa. That is, what properties a thing has and what relations it bears to other things is determined, metaphysically speaking, by there being a suitable array of true and false propositions. In the present paper, this doctrine is examined for its content and motivation. To show that it plays a genuine role in Russell’s early metaphysics and logic, I examine its consequences for (1) the possibility of truth-definitions and (2) the problem of the unity of the proposition. I shall draw a few somewhat tentative conclusions about where Russell stood vis-à-vis his metaphysics of propositions, suggesting a possible source of dissatisfaction that may have played a role in his eventual rejection of his early notion of proposition. (shrink)

This paper concerns Bertrand Russell’s changing views on negative judgement. ‘Negative judgement’ is considered in the context of three theories of judgement that Russell put forth at different times: a dual relation theory ; a multiple relation theory ; a psychological theory of judgement. Four issues are singled out for a more detailed discussion: quality dualism versus quality monism, that is, the question whether judgement comes in two kinds, acceptance and rejection, or whether there is only one judgement-quality ; the (...) structure of negative judging; the problem of truth-making for negative facts; the different roles of ‘fact’ in Russell’s theories of truth. What emerges from the discussion is a rough chronology of Russell’s views on negative judgement during the period from 1903 to 1948. (shrink)

Logic as Universal Science offers a detailed reconstruction of the underlying philosophy in The Principles of Mathematics showing how Russell sought to deliver a death blow to the dominant Kantian view that formal logic is a concise and dry science and unable to enlarge our understanding.

In Bertrand Russell’s The Principles of Mathematics and related works, the notion of a proposition plays an important role; it is by analyzing propositions, showing what kinds of constituents they have, that Russell arrives at his core logical concepts. At this time, his conception of proposition contains both a conventional and an unconventional part. The former is the view that propositions are the ultimate truth-bearers; the latter is the view that the constituents of propositions are “worldly” entities. In the latter (...) respect, Russellian propositions are akin to states-of-affairs on some robust understanding of these entities. The idea of Russellian propositions is well known, at least in outline. Not so well known is his treatment of truth, which nevertheless grows directly out of this notion of proposition. For the early Russell, the import of truth is primarily metaphysical, rather than semantic; reversing the usual direction of explanation, he holds that truth is explanatory of what is the case rather than vice versa. That is, what properties a thing has and what relations it bears to other things is determined, metaphysically speaking, by there being a suitable array of true and false propositions. In the present paper, this doctrine is examined for its content and motivation. To show that it plays a genuine role in Russell’s early metaphysics and logic, I examine its consequences for the possibility of truth-definitions and the problem of the unity of the proposition. I shall draw a few somewhat tentative conclusions about where Russell stood vis-à-vis his metaphysics of propositions, suggesting a possible source of dissatisfaction that may have played a role in his eventual rejection of his early notion of proposition. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1967, van Heijenoort’s paper, “Logic as Calculus and Logic as Language” has become a classic in the historiography of modern logic. According to van Heijenoort, the contrast between the two conceptions of logic provides the key to many philosophical issues underlying the entire classical period of modern logic, the period from Frege’s Begriffsschrift (1879) to the work of Herbrand, Gödel and Tarski in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The present paper is a critical reflection on (...) some aspects of van Heijenoort’s thesis. I concentrate on the case of Frege and Russell and the claim that their philosophies of logic are marked through and through by acceptance of the universalist conception of logic, which is an integral part of the view of logic as language. Using the so-called “Logocentric Predicament” (Henry M. Sheffer) as an illustration, I shall argue that the universalist conception does not have the consequences drawn from it by the van Heijenoort tradition. The crucial element here is that we draw a distinction between logic as a universal science and logic as a theory. According to both Frege and Russell, logic is first and foremost a universal science, which is concerned with the principles governing inferential transitions between propositions; but this in no way excludes the possibility of studying logic also as a theory, i.e., as an explicit formulation of (some) of these principles. Some aspects of this distinction will be discussed. (shrink)

This paper considers the role of constitutivity and normativity in Frege’s conception of logic. It outlines an historical interpretation with two goals. First, it traces these concepts back to their origins in Kant’s philosophy. Second, it considers some of the different ways in which the issue of normativity and its proper grounding was addressed in the neo-Kantian tradition and in early analytic philosophy. Some neo-Kantians worked out an epistemic-normative conception of objective judgment, according to which the objectivity of cognition is (...) constituted by distinctively logical norms. In Frege we find an original and sophisticated version of this line of thought. For Frege, the normative and constitutive roles of logic come to the fore in the articulation of scientific reason which follows the classical model of demonstrative science as cognitio ex principiis. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus then opens up a fresh Kantian perspective on the constitutivity of logic, one that grounds logic in structure rather than norms, and does so in conscious opposition to Frege and his normative science. Logic is transcendental, according to Wittgenstein, being the essence of the world and of all description. Hence, the normative function of logic becomes, in a way, superfluous. (shrink)

Finland is internationally known as one of the leading centers of twentieth century analytic philosophy. This volume offers for the first time an overall survey of the Finnish analytic school. The rise of this trend is illustrated by original articles of Edward Westermarck, Eino Kaila, Georg Henrik von Wright, and Jaakko Hintikka. Contributions of Finnish philosophers are then systematically discussed in the fields of logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, history of philosophy, ethics and social philosophy. Metaphilosophical reflections on (...) the nature of philosophy are highlighted by the Finnish dialogue between analytic philosophy, phenomenology, pragmatism, and critical theory. (shrink)

This is a review of A. Skodo (ed.) "Other Logics: Alternatives to Formal Logic in the History of Thought and Contemporary Philosophy".

This paper explores the prospects of a combinatorial account of modality. We argue against David M. Armstrong’s version of combinatorialism, which seeks to do without modal primitives, on the grounds, among other things, that Armstrong’s basic ontological categories are themselves subject to non-contingent constraints on recombination. We outline an alternative version, which acknowledges the necessity of modal primitives, at the level of ontology, and not just of our concepts.

Michael Beaney (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 1161 pp.ISBN: 978–0–19–923884–2.

This is a review of G. Stevens. The Theory of Descriptions: Russell and the Philosophy of Language.

Review of Logic as Universal Science: Russell’s Early Logicism and Its Philosophical Context, by Anssi Korhonen (Palgrave Macmillan 2013).

This paper attempts to bridge business ethics to corporate social responsibility including the social and environmental dimensions. The objective of the paper is to suggest a conceptual methodology with which ethics of corporate environmental management tools can be considered. The method includes two stages that are required for a shift away from the current dominant unsustainable paradigm and toward a more sustainable paradigm. The first stage is paradigmatic, metaphoric and normative. The second stage is a practical stage, which in turn, (...) is analytic, descriptive and positive. The method is applied to common industrial metabolism tools of ecological footprints (EF), environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and industrial ecology (IE). The application shows that all three tools can be used in business ethics, in particular, when the first stage of the method is applied to their use. (shrink)

I argue for a property mereology and for mereological bundle theory. I then apply this theory to the one over many problem (universals) and puzzles concerning persistence and material constitution.

How should we make choices when we know so little about our futures? L. A. Paul argues that we must view life decisions as choices to make discoveries about the nature of experience. Her account of transformative experience holds that part of the value of living authentically is to experience our lives and preferences in whatever ways they evolve.

Across three studies, the authors examine the interactive effects of moral identity and the negative reciprocity norm in predicting revenge. The general argument is that moral identity provides the motivational impetus for individuals’ responses, whereas the normative framework that people adopt as a basis for guiding moral action influences the direction of the response. Results indicated that moral identity and the negative reciprocity norm significantly interacted to predict revenge. More specifically, the symbolization dimension of moral identity interacted with the negative (...) reciprocity norm to predict revenge when individuals were the targets of mistreatment, whereas the internalization dimension of moral identity interacted with the negative reciprocity norm to predict revenge when individuals were the observers of mistreatment. Theoretical implications related to the differences between the symbolization and internalization dimensions of moral identity, the importance of examining normative frameworks, and the functionality of revenge are discussed. (shrink)

Graeme Laurie stepped down from the Chair in Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. This edited collection pays tribute to his extraordinary contributions to the field. Graeme has often spoken about the importance of 'legacy' in academic work and has forged a remarkable intellectual legacy of his own, notably through his work on genetic privacy, human tissue and information governance, and on the regulatory salience of the concept of liminality. The essays in this volume animate the concept (...) of legacy as lens of analysis for the study and practice of medical jurisprudence. In this light, legacy reveals characteristics of both benefit and burden, as both an encumbrance to and facilitator of the development of law, policy and regulation. Overall, the contributions reconcile the ideas of legacy and responsiveness and show that both dimensions are critical to achieve and sustain the health of medical jurisprudence itself as a dynamic, interdisciplinary and policy-engaged field of thinking. (shrink)

W. Labov's & T. Labov's findings concerning their child grammar acquisition ("Learning the Syntax of Questions" in Recent Advances in the Psychology of Language, Campbell, R. & Smith, P. Eds, New York: Plenum Press, 1978) are interpreted in terms of different semantics of why & other wh-questions. Z. Dubiel.

This article represents an attempt to organize, critique, and extend research findings on gender differences in business ethics. The focus is on two dependent variables—ethical judgment and behavioral intent. Differences in findings between student and professional groups are noted and theoretical implications are discussed. The new research provided for this article contains two benchmark studies undertaken with identical stimuli and identical measures. These studies were followed by two additional studies, using the same measures but different stimuli, as a partial replication (...) and extension of the first two. Findings suggest that little difference exists between the genders on behavioral intent for professional groups and only minimal differences for the ethical judgment measures. Student results, however, produced more substantial differences for behavioral intention. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Some of My Mother’s ThingsLaurie Sieverts Snyder (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View (...) full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolution Click for larger view View full resolutionSome of My Mother’s Things is an ongoing series of photographs of collections from my parents’ household. My mother, born in Danzig in 1908 and raised in Frankfurt, died in 1993 in Ithaca, New York. She was Jewish, but she never attended a synagogue or celebrated Jewish holidays. My father, born in Leipzig in 1906 and raised in Jena, died in Ithaca in 1979. He was not Jewish. In the United States, they became members of the Society of Friends.My parents emigrated to the United States in May 1938 with my two older brothers, who were no longer allowed to attend nursery school because of their half-Jewish status. My grandmother stayed behind, at her own request, and my parents made every effort to bring her to the United States. But she died in Frankfurt in December 1940. This tragedy pervaded my childhood and still haunts me as I play her music with her annotations or set the table on tablecloths that she embroidered. I also photograph her things: the bandages that she knitted and labeled, letters that she wrote, and the childhood letters she saved of her only daughter, my mother.My mother saved things: keys to every cabinet and drawer, suitcases, and doors. All her eyeglasses. She dug up the dahlias in the fall, stored them in a baby bathtub, and replanted them in the spring. She was an enthusiastic gardener. She was a violinist and her mother a pianist. The albums of music are now crumbling and brittle. Her music friends continue to use her music. The tablecloths, dozens of them, are mended and stained. I use a large square damask tablecloth as a bed sheet.I am always amazed at the things they brought with them when they emigrated by ship: furniture, rugs, books, linens, letters, toys, photographs, dishes, pots and pans. Then I remember that they could not bring money, so they brought everything else: including a box of bandages, one labeled in an early script: “a clean breast cloth from the beginning of the 19th century.” The label is sewn onto the linen cloth.After my mother’s death, I went through boxes of photographs. I found one yellow Kodak envelope, labeled in my mother’s handwriting: “Helmut’s ‘Weltreise.’” In the envelope were photographs of Daddy’s trip to America in 1937 when he was searching for a job and a place to move with his little family. He traveled by boat through Cuba, Mexico, and the Panama Canal to California and back across the United States by train. In the envelope are snapshots of my father, looking very handsome, age 31, standing at the ship’s rail with an attractive young woman. The photograph is labeled on the verso, in his handwriting, “meine kleine Freundin, Patricia Hays”—this is not my mother. My mother was in Frankfurt, waiting to hear where they would go, and during that time she lost her third baby.My mother wrote letters almost every day, and she kept a carbon copy on onionskin of each of her letters. She started writing letters as early as 1913. Most of the letters are in German. I don’t speak or write German, yet I feel compelled to store these relics of times past. When I traveled in Germany, I tried to speak German, but the words stuck in my throat.Related Articles: ImagesLaurie Sieverts Snyder Laurie Sieverts Snyder is a photographer and professor at... (shrink)

The concept of suffering is discussed among those who are cognitively aware and verbally capable to express their suffering. Due to immaturity, preterm infants’ abilities to express suffering are limited. Relieving suffering is an ethical and juridical demand of good nursing care. The purpose of this study is to describe nurses’ perceptions of the suffering of preterm infants. A descriptive qualitative approach was selected. Data were collected from essays written by nurses (n = 19) working in the neonatal intensive care (...) unit. Inductive content analysis guided by the research question was performed. The nurses described individually determined suffering of the preterm infants according to four categories: suffering ruled by maturation, existence of suffering, individual threshold of suffering and interpreting the cues of suffering. Suffering of preterm infants is manifested by population-specific features, emphasising the need to develop sensitive interventions for relieving their suffering. (shrink)

Examines changes in the women's movement in the twenty years following women's suffrage, and describes the complex issues of that period.

We examine recent evolution in corporate responsibility in the forest industry, an important natural‐resource‐based industry which is under rapid internationalisation and structural change under challenging financial pressures. We address two recent trends in corporate communication: corporate disclosure, that is the adoption of consistent external reporting standards [namely the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) ], and the growing awareness of engagement with and impact on local communities through philanthropy, generation of prosperity, communication and the social impact of core activities. This study uses (...) a comparative qualitative case approach to forest industry multinational enterprises (MNEs) based on a combination of secondary (reporting, company newsletters and other documentation) and interview data. Three large‐scale multinational forest industry firms, all pursuing different strategies in terms of internationalisation and geographical and product diversification, were chosen for the study: Stora Enso, SCA and Sappi Ltd. Our results show that the overall quality of sustainability reporting has improved in these companies from 2005 to 2009 with the adoption of GRI. However, based on our fourfold categorisation of social impact, the core social impact indicator in GRI (SO1) has been interpreted very differently in these MNEs, and the adoption of GRI has not actually much improved the comparability of the reports or transparency of practices. (shrink)

The right not to know is a contested matter. This can be because the inversion of the normal framing of entitlement to information about one's own health is thought to be illogical and inconsistent with self-authorship and/or because the very idea of claiming a right not to know information is an inappropriate appeal to the discourse of rights that places impossible responsibilities on others. Notwithstanding, there has been a sustained increase in this kind of appeal in recent years fueled in (...) large part by the rise and rise of the importance of personal autonomy in health care ethics, and by domestic and international health law. The right not to know has been acknowledged in at least two important international legal instruments. For example, the UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, Article 5c provides: “The right of every individual to decide whether or not to be informed of the results of genetic examination and the resulting consequences should be respected.”. (shrink)

This article analyses the representational stakes of queer of colour performance, by taking the case study of the Cocoa Butter Club: queer of colour cabaret night in London. Within a British landscape that has silenced queer subjectivities of colour at the intersection of race, gender and sexuality, I explore the potential of QPOC performance to redress historical erasure. To enact their presence, I argue that the Cocoa Butter Club’s performers showcase their collective disidentification from the scripts pre-assigned to their bodies (...) within the European imagination. By doing so, they disrupt hegemonic representations of queerness and racialised otherness, making room for a multitude of queer of colour becomings kept otherwise invisible from public view. Such disidentifications unleash ‘ghosts’ into the public space, spectres of elided subjectivities and unresolved coloniality within a city that likes to think of itself as a post-racial LGBT haven. Drawing on ethnographic material and interviews with performers, I analyse what happens when such queer of colour hauntings reach the audience’s gaze. I consider their unsettling effects in relation to the white gaze, as well as their empowering function in relation to desiring QPOC subjects, seeking reflections of themselves in spectatorship. (shrink)

Firstborn Laestadians represent one branch of the Laestadian revival movement following the so-called Great Division of around the turn of the twentieth century. This article examines two concepts; ‘the priesthood of all believers’ and ‘the preacher’, which are used by adherents of Firstborn Laestadianism to elucidate the further schism which took place in 2014–16 between the Firstborn and the Evangelic­­­al Lutheran Church of Finland. Both concepts are to some extent contrasted with comparable ideas in Martin Luther’s and Lars Levi Laestadius’s (...) thinking, because Luther and Laestadius are held in high esteem by the Firstborn. (shrink)

Psychological radio counselling is a relatively recent development in psychological practice, where professionals provide psychological help via mass media communication. In the media context, a professional and a help-seeker face a number of communicative challenges, one of which is to close the encounter meaningfully with regard to its counselling and radio tasks. This study explicates how radio counselling encounters can be rounded off by summarising and reviewing the progress achieved in understanding the caller’s problem. At the end of the encounters, (...) the radio psychologist invited callers to look back at the conversation and to formulate possible gains from it. On one hand, the radio psychologist encouraged callers’ reflection and acknowledged the callers’ entitlement to pass judgement on the outcomes of the encounter. On the other hand, the radio psychologist checked and subsequently reviewed the caller’s understanding of his or her problem and its solutions. We discuss how the practice was used to round off the encounters in a distinct way with an orientation to their counselling and radio objectives. (shrink)

This article argues for the importance of conceptual clarity in the debate about the so-called right not to know. This is vital both at the theoretical and the practical level. It is suggested that, unlike many formulations and attempts to give effect to this right, what is at stake is not merely an aspect of personal autonomy and therefore cannot and should not be reduced only to a question of individual choice. Rather, it is argued that the core interests that (...) can be protected by the right not to know are better conceived of as privacy interests rather than autonomy interests. This not only helps us to understand what is in play but also informs regulatory, professional, and legal responses to handling information and taking decisions about whether or not to disclose information to persons about themselves. The practical implications of this conceptualization are explored in the context of feedback policies in health-related research. (shrink)

Figuring prominently in their decisions regarding which theories to pursue are scientists' appeals to the promise or lack of promise of those theories. Yet philosophy of science has had little to say about how one is to assess theory promise. This essay identifies several indices that might be consulted to determine whether or not a theory is promising and worthy of pursuit. Various historical examples of appeals to such indices are introduced.

Drawing on diverse historical cases, this paper describes and examines various aspects of a modality of scientific appraisal which has remained largely unexplored, theory pursuit. Specifically, it addresses the following issues: the epistemic and pragmatic commitments involved in theory pursuit, including how these differ from those characteristic of theory acceptance; how the research interests of scientists enter into their pursuit decisions; some of the strategies for the refinement and extension of a theory's empirical abilities which typify theory pursuit; and the (...) need to distinguish between individual and community rationality in contexts of pursuit. (shrink)

To practice medicine and ethics, physicians need wisdom and integrity to integrate scientific knowledge, patient preferences, their own moral commitments, and society's expectations. This work of integration requires a physician to pursue certain goals of care, determine moral priorities, and understand that conscience or integrity require harmony among a person's beliefs, values, reasoning, actions, and identity. But the moral and religious pluralism of contemporary society makes this integration challenging and uncertain. How physicians treat patients will depend on the particular beliefs (...) and values they and other health professionals bring to each instance of shared decision making. This book offers a framework for practical wisdom in medicine that addresses the need for integrity in the life of each health professional. In doing so, it acknowledges the challenge of moral pluralism and the need for moral dialogue and humility as professionals fulfil their obligations to patients, themselves, and society. (shrink)