This paper examines the impact of the level of economic development, income inequality, and five cultural variables on the rate of software piracy at the country level. The study finds that software piracy is significantly correlated to GNP per capita, income inequality, and individualism. Implications for anti-piracy programs and suggestions for future research are developed.

This article argues that economic crises are incompatible with the realisation of non-domination in capitalist societies. The ineradicable risk that an economic crisis will occur undermines the robust security of the conditions of non-domination for all citizens, not only those who are harmed by a crisis. I begin by demonstrating that the unemployment caused by economic crises violates the egalitarian dimensions of freedom as non-domination. The lack of employment constitutes an exclusion from the social bases of self-respect, and from a (...) practice of mutual social contribution crucial to the intersubjective affirmation of one’s status. While this argument shows that republicans must be concerned about economic crises, I suggest a more powerful argument can be grounded in the republican requirement that freedom must be robust. The systemic risk of economic crisis constitutes a threat to the conditions of free citizenship that cannot be nullified using policy mechanisms. As a result, republicans appear to be faced with the choice of revising their commitments or rejecting the possibility that republican freedom can be robustly secured in capitalist societies. (shrink)

In this paper I begin by suggesting that Immanuel Kant’s argument for the impermissibility of treating others with contempt seems to be subject to a paradox very similar to the well known paradox of forgiveness first described by Aurel Kolnai. Specifically, either the object of the judgment of contempt is not really contemptible, in which case the prohibition on treating him with contempt is superfluous, or else the person truly is contemptible, in which case the prohibition seems unjustifiable, reducing to (...) a mere condonation of wrongdoing. My goal in the paper is to show that this paradox is only apparent. Making use of the philosophy of phrases that Jean-François Lyotard develops in The Differend—emphasizing especially the ideas of phrase-event, presentation, situation, addressor, and addressee—I argue that the Kantian prohibition on treating others with contempt is rationally defensible, even in cases in which we believe the object of the judgment of contempt truly is contemptible. (shrink)

To contribute to the continuing challenge of explaining how managers identify stakeholders and assess their salience, in this article, we chronicle the history, assess the impact, and evaluate the possibilities opened by Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (MAW-1997). We do so through two types of qualitative analysis, and also through utilizing a quantitative network analysis tool. The first qualitative analysis categorizes the major contributions of the most influential papers succeeding MAW-1997; the second identifies and compares the relevant issues with MAW-1997 at (...) the time of initial publication and today. We apply main path analysis, a quantitative tool, to map how this scholarly domain has evolved. These three analyses robustly depict the impact of MAW-1997 and the ensuing scholarly conversation, and they enable us to illustrate the current state and trajectory of stakeholder identification and salience scholarship. We close by discussing pressing topics related to the broader body of stakeholder theory literature. (shrink)

While it is a point of agreement in contemporary republican political theory that property ownership is closely connected to freedom as non-domination, surprisingly little work has been done to elucidate the nature of this connection or the constraints on property regimes that might be required as a result. In this paper, I provide a systematic model of the boundaries within which republican property systems must sit and explore some of the wider implications that thinking of property in these terms may (...) have for republicans. The boundaries I focus on relate to the distribution of property and the application of types of property claims over particular kinds of goods. I develop this model from those elements of non-domination most directly related to the operation of a property regime: (a) economic independence, (b) limiting material inequalities, and (c) the promotion of common goods. The limits that emerge from this analysis support intuitive judgments that animate much republican discussion of property distribution. My account diverges from much orthodox republican theory, though, in challenging the primacy of private property rights in the realization of economic independence. The value of property on republican terms can be realized without private ownership of the means of production. (shrink)

Integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) uses empirical methods to develop guidelines for international business ethics. This article criticizes ISCT in terms of the way people actually think about contracts and agreements around the globe. Differences in orientations to communications context, moral reasoning, and institutional and structural conditions make the identification of authentic norms, hypernorms, and relevant communities problematic. The difficulties of the empirical methods suggest recourse to more traditional theoretical approaches for the identification of hypernorms as well as a stronger (...) test for the compatibility of authentic norms with hypernorms. (shrink)

Increasingly research in the field of business and society suggests that ethics and corporate social responsibility can be profitable. Yet this work raises a troubling question: Is it ethical to use ethics and social responsibility in a strategic way? Is it possible to be ethical or socially responsible for the wrong reason? In this article, we define a strategy concept in order to situate the different approaches to the strategic use of ethics and social responsibility found in the current literature. (...) We then analyze the ethics of such approaches using both utilitarianism and deontology and end by defining limits to the strategic use of ethics. (shrink)

A brief account of the work of Giorgio Agamben and its relation to the work of Jean-Luc Nancy.

A brief description of phenomenology and of its relation to the work of Jean-Luc Nancy.

A brief description of ontology and of its relation to the work of Jean-Luc Nancy.

I argue in this paper that Immanuel Kant's account of the moral wrongness of contempt in the Metaphysics of Morals provides important resources for our understanding of the nature of moral subjectivity. Although Kant typically emphasizes the subject's position as autonomous addressor of the moral law, his remarks on contempt bring into relief a dynamic relationship at the heart of practical subjectivity between the addressor and addressee positions. After tracing the development of reflection concerning the addressor and addressee positions in (...) early modern philosophy, beginning with Francisco Suarez and Samuel Pufendorf, I articulate and defend what I take to be a Kantian conception of the relation between those positions. More specifically, I argue that to be a moral subject at all is necessarily to position oneself as the addressor of the moral law, but that one must at the same time maintain oneself in the addressee position, resisting the full conversion to the addressor position that autonomy seems to demand. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

In this article I offer a three-pronged defense of Millian theories, all of which share the rough idea that all there is to a proper name is its referent, so it has no additional sense. I first give what I believe to be the first correct analysis of Kripke’s puzzle and its anti-Fregean lessons. The main lesson is that the Fregean’s arguments against Millianism and for the existence of semantically relevant senses (that is, individuative elements of propositions or belief contents (...) that are sensitive to our varying personal conceptions of the referents of those elements) are viciously circular. Thus, the Fregean must give new arguments for her central claims. Second, I offer an original, positive argument for the Millian idea that the thoughts that Cicero was bald and that Tully was bald are identical. Incredibly, the argument appeals to nothing but highly intuitive, pre-theoretical principles regarding folk psychological usage—traditionally the source of Fregean intuitions. Third, I examine one of the most important recent papers on Kripke’s puzzle, that by David Sosa (1996). Sosa claims to have found a way to turn the tables on Kripke’s puzzle by using it to argue against Millian theories. I argue that Sosa’s argument on behalf of the Fregean is question-begging. I conclude that Millian theories can be seriously defended without any use of theoretical constructs such as guises or Russellian propositions, and Fregeans need to start over arguing for their theory’s central claims. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Does the fact that deception is widely practised – even though there is a general prohibition against deception – provide insight into the ethics of deceptive methods in research, especially for social‐behavioral research? I answer in the affirmative. The ubiquity of deception argument, as I will call it, points to the need for a concrete and nuanced understanding of the variety of deceptive practices, and thus promises an alternative route of analysis for why some deception may be permissible in (...) social‐behavioral research. As an alternative argument it also promises to break the stalemate that emerges in debates on the ethics of deceptive methods in social‐behavioral research. In the current paper I (1) motivate and articulate the ubiquity argument in order to clarify the significance of ubiquity and discharge some initial objections. Then, on the recommendations of the ubiquity argument, I (2) highlight the importance of interpersonal relationships for understanding the ethics of deception. Following this insight I (3) provide an analysis of several features of the researcher‐participant relationship relevant to the understanding of the ethics of deception in research. I then (4) conclude the argument with some recommendations for the ethical use of deceptive methods in social‐behavioral research. (shrink)

While it is a point of agreement in contemporary republican political theory that property ownership is closely connected to freedom as non-domination, surprisingly little work has been done to elucidate the nature of this connection or the constraints on property regimes that might be required as a result. In this paper, I provide a systematic model of the boundaries within which republican property systems must sit and explore some of the wider implications that thinking of property in these terms may (...) have for republicans. The boundaries I focus on relate to the distribution of property and the application of types of property claims over particular kinds of goods. I develop this model from those elements of non-domination most directly related to the operation of a property regime: (a) economic independence, (b) limiting material inequalities, and (c) the promotion of common goods. The limits that emerge from this analysis support intuitive judgments that animate much republican discussion of property distribution. My account diverges from much orthodox republican theory, though, in challenging the primacy of private property rights in the realization of economic independence. The value of property on republican terms can be realized without private ownership of the means of production. (shrink)

Despite the appeal of the stakeholder concept, little work had been done with respect to the development of specific structures for the management of stakeholder relations. This paper draws upon the organizational justice literature to demonstrate how many of its concerns coincide with those of the stakeholder management literature. It shows that organizational justice can provide specific advice for the design of stakeholder relations, while stakeholder theory can broaden the scope of current inquiries into organizational justice.

My dissertation presents a comprehensive rethinking of the Kantian imperative, articulating it on the basis of what I call originary sense. Calling primarily upon the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard, I show (1) that sense constitutes the ontologically most basic dimension of our worldly being and (2) that the way in which this sense happens is determinative for our experience of the ethical imperative. By originary sense I mean to name something that is neither sensible sense (...) (sensation) nor intelligible sense (meaning), but rather a kind of unity of these two that is ontologically anterior to their separation. In the first chapter I follow Merleau-Ponty’s argument in Phenomenology of Perception that sensible sense and intelligible sense belong originarily together at the level of the lived body. We are able to intend the meaning of worldly situations (Husserl’s Sinngebung) only insofar as we are responsive in an embodied way to the imperatives that are given in the sensible itself. The intelligible lawfulness so characteristic of the Kantian imperative is thus shown to be grounded in a more fundamental unity of intelligible and sensible sense. The second chapter follows Merleau-Ponty’s later works, especially The Prose of the World and The Visible and the Invisible, showing how the sensibility that is inseparable from the imperative introduces important limitations to the universalizing tendencies of Kant’s moral philosophy, drawing us back to the irreducible situatedness of ethical situations. In the third chapter I turn to the very different articulation of sense given by Gilles Deleuze, primarily in his Logic of Sense. I show there that Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological conception of sense does not allow us to think the singularity of the imperative, the fact that the ethical command weighs on a me that cannot be grasped in terms of the generalities of my public identity. This singularity corresponds broadly to the idea of dignity in Kant’s moral philosophy. I argue that Deleuze, who conceptualizes sense as an event, gives us the resources to think singularity and to understand what it entails for our ethical practice. Finally, I attempt in the fourth chapter to think these two sides of the imperative—its demand for universality and its emphasis on singularity and dignity— together in the idea of libidinal sense. Calling on Jean-François Lyotard’s Libidinal Economy and, to a lesser extent, on Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, I show that these two apparently incompatible requirements of the imperative have a common source in the event of libidinal investment (cathexis). In thus locating the source of the imperative in originary, libidinal sense, I hope both to shed some light on the irreducible complexity of our ethical being and to present a more humane, less moralizing version of the imperative than is typically articulated in moral philosophy. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the likelihood that recent conventions against corruption signed by the OECD and the OAS will be effective in Latin America. It begins by looking at the cultural context of corruption in Latin America and examines efforts by Latin American signatories to implement both agreements. It then evaluates the extent to which these efforts will prove successful. It concludes with suggestions for the development of culturally sensitive policies that will be effective in the fight against corruption in Latin (...) America. (shrink)

The investigator seeks guidance related to a planned recruitment strategy of requiring participants to live within close proximity to the study site for the 32-week Phase II study examining the saf...

This paper sketches a new approach to the critical-theoretic problem of reification understood as a normatively problematic form of naturalizing or dehistoricizing entifcation. Entifcation in general is approached phenomenologically in terms of the mythic outer horizonality of the lifeworld, and reification is shown to stem from the dichotomy between nature and history which, along with a corresponding dichotomy between myth and reason, is characteristic of Enlightenment rationality. Dereification necessitates overcoming these dichotomies, and this implies a critical embrace of myth and (...) mythopoesis in the sense of instituting more normatively appropriate lifeworld horizons. While classical Marxism and radical social theory have typically adhered to the standard model of Enlightenment thought, with the result that the critique of naturalization backfires by reinforcing the dichotomy between nature and history, Luxemburgian spontaneism, rethought through a phenomenology of embodied enaction, is shown to ofer a more viable way of understanding reification and its solution. (shrink)

Call the conventionalist challenge to natural rights theory the claim that natural rights theory fails to capture the fact that moral rights are shaped by social and legal convention. While the conventionalist challenge is a natural concern, it is less than clear what this challenge amounts to. This paper aims to develop a clear formulation strong enough to put pressure on the natural rights theorist and precise enough to clarify what an adequate response would require.

In a 1798 letter to Christian Garve, Kant claims that without a transition [Übergang] from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics there will be a ‘gap’ in the Critical philosophy. He does not make clear, however, exactly what this gap is or how the transition is supposed to fill the gap. The Übergang section of Kant's Opus postumum has received considerable attention of late due to the many drafts it contains of Kant's Ether Deduction. Commentators have also hoped (...) to find a solution there to the gap problem. Little attention has been paid, however, to Kant's project in Convolut 10 of the OP which he began in August 1799 immediately after completing the Übergang section. Assuming that the Ether Deduction is sound and proves a priori the existence of a transcendental material condition for experience, Convolut 10 discusses what changes would have to be made to the transcendental formal conditions of experience in their empirical function given the addition of this transcendental material condition. Kant claims in Convolut 10 that these changes are necessary to finally effect a transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics and, as I will argue, such a transition will be tantamount to bridging the gap in the Critical philosophy mentioned in the letter to Garve. (shrink)

It is a core feature of the conception of freedom as non-domination that freedom requires the absence of exposure to arbitrary power across a range of relevant possible worlds. While this modal robustness is critical to the analysis of paradigm cases of unfreedom such as slavery, critics such as Gerald Gaus have argued that it leads to absurd conclusions, with barely-felt constraints appearing as sources of unfreedom. I aim to clarify the demands of the modal robustness requirement, and offer a (...) reinterpretation of its place in the conceptual framework of freedom as non-domination. I illustrate this point through a discussion of low-probability threats of interference which are central to Gaus’s critique, which I term ‘distant threats’. I argue that those committed to robust conceptions of freedom should still be concerned by these kinds of threats, which will sometimes constitute genuine sources of unfreedom. But rather than leading to absurd conclusions, we should instead view them as diagnostic of deficiencies within existing regimes of non-domination. The challenge posed by distant threats of domination to the republican conception of freedom does not prove it implausible, but illustrates some of its most important insights about the social and economic conditions of free status, and the fragility of that freedom. (shrink)

Millianism is reasonable; that is, it is reasonable to think that all there is to the semantic value of a proper name is its referent. But Millianism appears to be undermined by the falsehood of Substitutivity, the principle that interchanging coreferential proper names in an intentional context cannot change the truth value of the resulting belief report. Mary might be perfectly rational in assenting to ‘Twain was a great writer’ as well as ‘Clemens was not a great writer’. Her confusion (...) does not seem to preclude her from assenting to those sentences in a normal, understanding manner. That is, Assent-for-Mary is true: Mary can knowingly assent to ‘Twain was a great writer’ and ‘Clemens was not a great writer’. By Disquotation—the rough principle that if in ordinary circumstances one assents to “P”, then one believes that P—Mary believes that Twain was a great writer and she believes that it’s not the case that Clemens was a great writer. If Substitutivity were true, then since ‘Mary believes that Twain was a great writer’ is true, ‘Mary believes that Clemens was a great writer’ would have to be true too. But then Mary would amount to a refutation of the plausible principle Consistency that, roughly put, no rational adult can have occurrently held and reflectively considered and compared contradictory beliefs. Since Disquotation, Assent-for-Mary, and Consistency are true, Substitutivity has to go. (shrink)

Political parties have been the subject of a recent resurgent interest among political philosophers, with prominent contributions spanning liberal to socialist literatures arguing for a more positive appraisal of the role of parties in the operation of democratic representation and public deliberation. In this article, I argue for a similar re-evaluation of the role of political parties within contemporary republicanism. Contemporary republicanism displays a wariness of political parties. In Philip Pettit’s paradigmatic account of republican democracy, rare mentions of political parties (...) often stress their tendency to lead to factionalism or corruption. Others working in the republican tradition such as Richard Bellamy and Ian Shapiro provide more extended discussion of the role of parties, but limit their theoretical function to enabling electoral competition. I argue that political parties play a far more significant role in promoting non-domination than this. In addition to enabling electoral competition, I show that political parties are also essential to the effective operation of two other components of republican democracy: contestation and interest-formation. I further argue that understanding political parties in these terms is compatible with republican democracy more generally, addressing the worry that parties will produce factional rather than common-good oriented public decisions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Past and Future of Environmental Ethics/PhilosophyBryan Norton (bio)About 15 years ago, at one of the first meetings of the group known as the International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) at American Philosophical Association (APA) meetings, I drew an analogy with the field of medical ethics, arguing that environmental ethicists should look beyond philosophy departments and seek liaisons with Schools of Forestry, Schools of Marine Science, and Environmental Studies (...) Programs, and that philosophers should take a more active role in policy discussions and process. At that time, I was actively engaged in the actual policy processes, at the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies, and perceived that: (a) These agencies desperately needed the kinds of conceptual and normative analysis philosophers could provide; but that (b) Practitioners of environmental policy did not find that the categories and concepts of traditional "metaphysical" approaches to environmental value provided them with useful guidance in policy decision making.My urging gained me some heavy criticism, and even made me some enemies, as leading members of the environmental ethics establishment openly complained that my judgment—in seeing philosophy of environmental protection as needing a basis in analysis of possible actions—had been compromised by "spending too much time inside the beltway."Since those early years, I have watched my colleagues in environmental ethics debate this point, but mainly as a sideline to their metaphysical speculation.In the meantime, my colleagues in medical ethics have populated medical schools, formed liaisons with medical research institutions, and become regular commentators on newscasts about ethically controversial medical issues. Meanwhile, Chris Stone, the legal scholar, had his students do a word search of the Congressional Record over several years, and found almost no references to "environmental ethics."As I see it, there are three differences between the environmental ethics and the medical ethics cases: (1) Philosophers have responded to medical issues by engaging practitioners, while most environmental ethicists have become, at best, "token" members of philosophy departments and, whereas medical ethics practitioners tend to talk about decision criteria [End Page 134] ("informed consent", etc.), environmental ethicist continue to concentrate on the metaphysical foundations of environmental values; (2) The medical profession, beset with public controversies, recognized the need for more ethical discourse about medical choices, and actively embraced philosophers in their programs, whereas most environmental practioners cannot see how philosophical analysis will help them to make better decisions; and (3) Being much wealthier than environmentalists, the medical schools and professionals were able to initiate positions and offer financial support, while environmental ethicists have to compete with other environmental researchers and commentators for small pots of funding.While we can't do much about (3), we can, I assert, do a lot more about (1) and (2). With respect to philosophy departments, the trend may be(and in my view should be) toward developing joint appointments between philosophy departments and policy schools, forestry schools, and environmental studies programs. This will bring philosophers and students into more direct contact with real problems and the language of decision making, rather than metaphysics. And with respect to point (2), I continue to urge environmental philosophers to address real problems, rather than operating on an abstract level and then finding "applications" of these abstractions.Philosophers, in other words, should become more "pragmatic" in their approach to both policy and philosophy. One aspect of this move is the need—after years of thinking of environmental philosophy as environmental ethics—to concentrate on epistemological, not metaphysical, aspects of environmental science and decision making.Let me expand on this last point, because it seems to me to be the most important consideration affecting the future of environmental ethics, at least in the short and medium run. I think the central debates about whether nonhumans have "intrinsic value" will be (and should be) replaced with a vigorous discussion of the epistemology of all environmental values. Recently, two leading environmental philosophers, Baird Callicott and Mark Sagoff, have strongly endorsed what would traditionally be called "non-naturalist" approaches to the epistemology of environmental ethics. For Sagoff, this involved positing "ethical and aesthetic" facts which should guide environmental policy discourse away from any discussion of the utilitarian benefits of an improved... (shrink)

My hunch has always been that in the end, Fregeanism will defeat Millianism. So I suspect that my (1998) arguments on behalf of Millianism are flawed. Peter Graham (1999) is confident he has found the flaws, but he has not. I hope that some clarification will encourage others to reveal the errors.

This paper looks broadly at the theme of corporate governance in Mexico. It begins with a brief analysis of the historical corporate governance model in Mexico, including the governance structures, the banking and financial systems, ownership and control patterns, industrial policy, and industrial relations. The paper then examines how and why these various aspects of corporate governance have been changing with processes of economic liberalization currently under way. Finally, it analyzes the consequences of changes in the model of corporate governance (...) for the country's development (e.g. increased consumer goods for middle class consumers, increased disclosure by domestic corporations, less support for corporate social programs, etc.). (shrink)

The essay sheds light on Aristotle's understanding of friendship and its relation to political life. The author challenges the usual view that Aristotle postulates three distinct kinds of friendship. Instead the author argues that Aristotle understood there to be only one kind of friendship, and that other "friendships" were to Aristotle "unfinished" and thus not friendship at all. Aristotle shows that the relation between friendship and politics is grounded in friendship's possibility for human beings, and not as something cherished for (...) its actuality. By looking at proper friendship as possibility and not actuality, we could only ever interpret the infamous statement attributed to Aristotle—"my friends, there are no friends"—not as illuminating of what friendship is but rather as a nostalgic diagnosis of the decay of the possibility of friendship, and hence of politics. By extension, and more poignantly, interpreting Aristotle's work on friendship in this light, we stand ready to reinterpret the mobilization of Aristotelian friendship for contemporary understandings of democratic practice. (shrink)

Many activities of doctors in the acute hospital sector do not improve patient outcome because they are inappropriate. Curtailing interventions that are unnecessary (because the patient is not bad enough) or are unsuccessful (because the condition is too advanced) could both save resources and improve care. Rational rationing depends on knowledge about the expected benefits of various technologies when used in different clinical circumstances.

There is general agreement, which I share, that among the earliest of Western philosophers were three of the very greatest: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Each of these is on record as saying something – and it is almost the same thing – about the nature of philosophy itself that goes to the heart of the matter. Aristotle said: ‘It is owing to their wonder that men now begin, and first began, to philosophise’. And Plato wrote, putting his words into the (...) mouth of Socrates: ‘This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin’. (shrink)

Critics of my book, Sustainability, have raised many objections which are addressed. In general, I emphasize that the book is an integrative work; it must be long and complex beause it attempts a comprehensive treatment of problems of communication, of evaluation, and of management action in environmental discourse. I explain that I depend upon the pragmatists and on work in the pragmatics of language because the current language of environmental policy discourse is inadequate to allow deliberative processes that can reach (...) consensus and cooperative actions. I revise my account of risk analysis somewhat, and defend my broad approach to the concept of sustainability. Finally, I discuss applications of my book to the current situation in environmental policy discourse. (shrink)

I have taken the traditional problem of the seeming interdependence of identity concepts and essentialistic concepts and the attendant difficulties with circularity as a starting point in my consideration of recent attempts to provide accounts ofde re essences. Having distinguished between theories of individual and generic essences, I have shown how a linguistic device based upon a new approach to referring expressions has, perhaps, provided some advance in the understanding of individualde re essences. I have argued that, however efficacious these (...) linguistic devices may be in dealing with individual essences, they are of no help in dealing with generic essences. I considered, therefore, one of the recent attempts to use science as the arbiter ofde re essences and concluded that such attempts will not, ultimately, solve the traditional problem of circularity. That problem remains, arising in different forms to thwart different attempts to account forde re generic essences. (shrink)

Counterpart theorists need not posit the counterpart relation in addition to the identity relations as an Additional relation relating objects across possible worlds. Identity can be viewed as a relation applicable to individuals within possible worlds, while the counterpart relation replaces identity in translations of ordinary utterances which correlate individuals in different possible worlds and, hence, in all modal utterances. CT is, in other words, a theory of modal discourse — it proposes a way of understanding all modal predications. As (...) such, it is not to be seen as providing a second ‘looser’ sense of identity across worlds, in addition to the ‘narrow’ sense. Perhaps Lewis' original formulation encourages this misunderstanding insofar as it (see, especially, P2) denies strict identity across possible worlds. Accordingly, I have suggested a modification of CT whereby syntactic restrictions upon variables eliminates any temptation to posit two parallel relations applicable to entities existing in different possible worlds. (shrink)

I will discuss two themes that can be found in Mark Sagoff's most recent book, Price, Principle, and the Environment. Built from pieces fashioned in his entertaining and incisive critical es...

Rudolf Carnap defended two quite different critiques of traditional philosophy: in addition to the much discussed verifiability criterion, he also proposed a critique based upon "formalizability." Formalizability rests upon the principle of tolerance plus an acceptance of a linguistic methodology. Standard interpreters of Carnap (e.g., [7] and [8]) assume that the principle of tolerance (and, hence, formalizability) gains its argumentative support from verificationism. Carnap, in fact, kept the two critiques separate and independent. Indeed, verificationism is even, in spirit, inconsistent with (...) tolerance. If the formalizability approach is emphasized, traditional metaphysics is reconstructed, not banished. Philosophical disputes remain rationally decidable, but metatheoretical in nature. Two results follow: Carnap's metaphilosophy cannot be rejected merely on the basis of rejections of verifiability. Second, Carnap's conclusion that all philosophy concerns language provides no reason for despair. (shrink)