An attempt to analyse what it is for belief to be based on reasons becomes involved with questions about the goodness of reasons and the gettier examples. intuitions about knowledge and the "gettier effect" can be used to decide when reasoning has occurred and what reasoning there has been. explanation by reasons is not deterministic.

I begin by describing my relation with Nicholas Sturgeon and his objections to things I have said about moral explanations. Then I turn to issues about moral relativism. One of these is whether a plausible version of moral relativism can be formulated as a claim about the logical form of certain moral judgments. I agree that is not a good way to think of moral relativism. Instead, I think of moral relativism as a version of moral realism. I compare moral (...) relativism with the relativity of motion and with the relativity of language. Moralities are real in a way that is similar to the way that languages are real. Next I discuss resemblances between nonhuman animal behavior and human behavior having to do with language or communication and with moral or proto-moral behavior. However, I am more interested in aspects of language and morality that are not found in nonhuman animals, aspects that appear to depend on a kind of recursive structure in human language and morality but not in animals. This leads me to argue that aspects of moral theory might benefit from a comparison with certain aspects of linguistic theory. Another comparison is between moralities and legal systems: I speculate that the content of legal and moral systems is influenced by legal and moral bargaining. (shrink)

The meaning of a symbol is determined by its use, but the canonical way of specifying meaning is in a statement of the form "S means...". To be able to provide such a specification is equivalent to being able to translate the symbol S into one's own terms. A change in usage of terms involves a change of meaning iff the correct translation between earlier usage and later usage takes a term into a different expression. Such translation is holistic, a (...) matter of finding the best mapping. Sameness of meaning is a similarity relation, as is sameness of concept. The meaning of a larger expression is derived from the meaning of its parts iff the translation of the whole is derived from the translation of its parts. (shrink)

Putnam rejects "metaphysical realism," which takes "the world" to be a single complex thing, a connected causal or explanatory order into which all facts fit. he argues that such metaphysical realism is responsible for views he finds implausible; in particular, it can lead to moral relativism when one tries to locate the place of value in the world of fact. i agree that metaphysical realism will lead a thoughtful philosopher to moral relativism, but find neither of these views implausible. in (...) particular, putnam's main argument against metaphysical realism seems fallacious and his suggested alternative, to think of truth as the idea limit of rational inquiry, is clearly incorrect. (shrink)

I am concerned with values in the descriptive rather than in the normative sense. I am interested in theories that seek to explain one or another aspect of people's moral psychology. Why do people value what they value? Why do they have other moral reactions? What accounts for their feelings, their motivations to act morally, and their opinions about obligation, duty, rights, justice, and what people ought to do? A moral theory like utilitarianism may be put forward as offering the (...) correct normative account of justice, or of the good, or of what people ought morally to do. The answers such a theory offers may be surprising in suggesting that what people ought to do is quite different from what they think they ought to do. I am not concerned with normative moral theories of this revisionary sort. Indeed, I am interested in less revisionary normative theories only to the extent that they can be reinterpreted as offering potential explanations of people's actual moral reactions. (shrink)

Theories of causation may imply that your birth causes your death, which seems odd in the way that it is not odd to say that your birth precedes your death. Theories of knowledge may imply that the object of knowledge is the same as the object of belief, although we know but do not believe facts and we can know a proposition without knowing whether it is true.

Here is a pioneering volume that explores adolescent homosexuality around the world. Social scientists examine the personal experiences of gay and lesbian teenagers from culture to culture and address the problems and obstacles these young people face. The changing contexts, values, and goals of societies worldwide are affecting how these adolescents adapt to being homosexual, and this compelling book gives keen insight into how changes in the United States contrast with changes elsewhere. A unique and thorough description of the identities, (...) situations, and relationships of homosexual teens in many societies, Gay and Lesbian Youth will help social scientists, health care professionals, counselors, gay teenagers, and their parents to better understand the similarities of the problems facing these youth, while recognizing the minor differences in their social and personal situations. How do the personal experiences of gay and lesbian teenagers vary from culture to culture? Here is the best, most complete description of the identities, situations, and relationships of homosexual teens in many societies. The changing contexts, values, and goals of societies worldwide are affecting how these adolescents adapt to being homosexual, and this compelling book gives keen insight into how changes in the United States contrast with changes elsewhere. Social scientists, health care professionals, counselors, gay teenagers, and their parents will better understand the similarities of the problems facing these youth, while recognizing the minor differences in their social and personal situations. These differences must be understood by interpreting the adaptations of gay and bisexual teenagers around the world. (shrink)

Werner Jaeger's highly-acclaimed work treats paideia, the shaping of Greek character, as the basis for study of Hellenism as a whole, to explain the interaction between the historical process by which Greek character was formed and the intellectual process by which they constructed their ideal of the human personality.

For philosophical naturalism, as I understand it, philosophy is continuous with natural science. It takes the methods of philosophy to be continuous with those of the natural sciences and is sceptical of allegedly apriori intuitions which it claims need to be tested against one’s other beliefs and, ideally, against the world.

Ce livre présente cinq entretiens avec des philosophes pionniers dans le champ de la bioéthique francophone, Anne Fagot-Largeault et Jean-Yves Goff i (France), Gilbert Hottois et Jean-Noël Missa (Belgique) et Marie-Hélène Parizeau (Québec), cinq personnalités de renom, connues pour leur trajectoire exceptionnelle. Les entretiens menés avec ces auteurs au sujet de leurs oeuvres, de leurs expériences dans des comités de bioéthique et des différents débats soulevés ces dernières années nous permettent de connaître leur travail, mais aussi de faire une (...) incursion dans le développement fulgurant de la bio-médecine et des biotechnologies des cinquante dernières années. Les conséquences de ces applications, les problèmes éthiques générés, les jugements favorables et défavorables à l'égard des changements sociaux qui se sont produits et le bouleversement d'idées qui s'en est suivi, sont autant d'aspects abordés dans ces entretiens. L'utilisation du langage courant exige un effort de synthèse important; aussi ces entretiens sous la forme d'une conversation, offrent-ils au lecteur une large vision panoramique, rigoureuse et concise de l'évolution de la bioéthique francophone. (shrink)

A proper understanding of intentionality is crucial to the study of a number of topics in cognitive science, including perception, imagery, and consciousness. The term itself, intentionality, can be misleading, in suggesting intentional action, doing something intentionally, with a certain aim or purpose. In cognitive science, the term is used in a different, more technical sense. Intentionality involves reference or aboutness or some similar relation to something having what the scholastics of the Middle Ages called intentional inexistence.

What is distinctive about my views in epistemology? One thing is that my concern with epistemology is a concern with methodology. Furthermore, I reject psychologism about logic and reject the idea that deductive rules like modus ponens are in any way rules of inference. I accept a kind of methodological conservatism and reject methodological theories that appeal to special foundations, analytic truth, or a priori justification. Although I believe that there are significant practical aspects of theoretical reasoning, I reject the (...) suggestion that theoretical reasoning is a special case of practical reasoning applied to a special epistemic goal. I also believe that a methodological epistemology that is concerned with the reliability of inferential methods can benefit from an appreciation of important relevant concepts and results about reliability in statistical learning theory. (shrink)