If necessity is a generic notion, then, like any generic notion, it becomes specified not by a criterion as such but by a differentia. The differentia of logical necessity is that the denial of a logically necessary proposition is self-contradictory; one of our best criteria of logical necessity is that after careful consideration we see that the denial of the proposition is self-contradictory.

_The Structures of the Life-World _is the final focus of twenty-seven years of Alfred Schutz's labor, encompassing the fruits of his work between 1932 and his death in 1959. This book represents Schutz's seminal attempt to achieve a comprehensive grasp of the nature of social reality. Here he integrates his theory of relevance with his analysis of social structures. Thomas Luckmann, a former student of Schutz's, completed the manuscript for publication after Schutz's untimely death.

This important volume explores alternative ways in which those involved in the field of speech communication have attempted to find a philosophical grounding for rhetoric. Recognizing that rhetoric can be supported in a wide variety of ways, this text examines eight different philosophies of rhetoric: realism, relativism, rationalism, idealism, materialism, existentialism, deconstructionism, and pragmatism. The value of this book lies in its pluralistic and comparative approach to rhetorical theory. Although rhetoric may be the more difficult road to philosophy, the fact (...) that it is being traversed by a group of authors largely from speech communication demonstrates important growth in this field. Ultimately, there is recognition that if different thinkers can have solid reasons to adhere to disparate philosophies, serious communication problems can be eliminated. _Rhetoric and Philosophy_ will assist scholars in choosing from among the many philosphical starting places for rhetoric. (shrink)

French naturalists at the Muséum Nationale d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris in the early nineteenth century recognized that their individual and collective successes were intimately linked to questions of power over specimens. France’s strength abroad affected the growth of the museum’s collections. At the museum, preserving, naming, classifying, displaying, interpreting, and otherwise deploying specimens went hand in hand with promoting scientific theories, advancing scientific careers, and instructing the public. The control of specimens, both literally and figuratively, was the museum’s ongoing concern. (...) The leopard in this essay’s title, a live specimen confiscated from the streets of Paris in 1793, serves here to represent the tensions created in an existing order of things by the introduction of a potentially disruptive agent. The essay explores the life of the museum and the interrelations among its naturalists, the special challenges created by the establishment of a menagerie, and the histories of particular specimens and ideas. (shrink)

In The Varieties of Reference, Gareth Evans argues that the content of perceptual experience is nonconceptual, in a sense I shall explain momentarily. More recently, in his book Mind and World, John McDowell has argued that the reasons Evans gives for this claim are not compelling and, moreover, that Evans’s view is a version of “the Myth of the Given”: More precisely, Evans’s view is alleged to suffer from the same sorts of problems that plague sense-datum theories of perception. In (...) particular, McDowell argues that perceptual experience must be within “the space of reasons,” that perception must be able to give us reasons for, that is, to justify, our beliefs about the world: And, according to him, no state that does not have conceptual content can be a reason for a belief. Now, there are many ways in which Evans’s basic idea, that perceptual content is nonconceptual, might be developed; some of these, I shall argue, would be vulnerable to the objections McDowell brings against him. But I shall also argue that there is a way of developing it that is not vulnerable to these objections. (shrink)

John Etchemendy has argued that it is but "a fortuitous accident" that Tarski's work on truth has any signifance at all for semantics. I argue, in response, that Etchemendy and others, such as Scott Soames and Hilary Putnam, have been misled by Tarski's emphasis on definitions of truth rather than theories of truth and that, once we appreciate how Tarski understood the relation between these, we can answer Etchemendy's implicit and explicit criticisms of neo-Davidsonian semantics.

Taxation and government policy related to it have only episodic appearance in classical Protestant ethical sources. Of the early sixteenth century reformers, Luther gave most attention to the subject, justifying taxation in general as necessary for the just service of government to the public good and calling the princes to spend tax monies for that good rather than their own luxury. Calvin made much the same claims but called more clearly for official church scrutiny of all government than did Luther. (...) Two centuries later John Wesley criticized English tax policy, appealing to standards of economic efficiency and compassion for the poor with little reference overtly to theology. The churches of colonial and post-revolutionary America developed no systematic, theologically rooted rationale for taxation ethics, either; but official Protestant denominational concern for such ethics has grown measurably in the most recent fifteen years. After a survey of these recent national church statements, and on the basis of them and the slender Protestant heritage on this issue, we end by posing four questions which we see as worthy of much serious thinking by contemporary American Protestant ethicists and church bodies. (shrink)

I argue that the uniqueness of comedy lies in its potential for social critique. Reading through Aristotle, Hegel, and Umberto Eco, I show that because comedy is not negative, not a counter-argument, it can expose social structures for what they are.

Science, the Singular, and the Question of Theology explores the role that the singular plays in the theories of science of Robert Grosseteste, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Marsilius of Inghen, and Pierre d'Ailly. It pursues the question specifically in relation to the question of whether theology is a science. The work argues that the main issue in debates concerns whether theology is a science and how to provide a 'rational ground' for existing singulars. Science, the Singular, and (...) the Question of Theology exposes how, on the eve of modernity, existing singulars were freed from the constraints of rational ground. (shrink)

In Defensor Pacis Marsilius of Padua grounds the legitimacy of the kingdom, or the state, on the peace that rule provides the citizens. Looking at Aristotle’s claim that the civitas strives to be like an animal in which all parts in the right proportion for the sake of health, Marsilius argues that ‘the parts of the kingdom or state will be well disposed for the sake of peace [tranquilitas].’ Marsilius goes on to define peace as the agreeable ‘belonging together’ of (...) all members of the kingdom or the state. In this way, Marsilius moves away from a theological ground of the legitimacy of the state towards one that is entirely secular. However, the ground is an unstable one in that it acknowledges the fact that the ‘members’ of the body politic are characterised by difference. As such, the ground of legitimate authority will be characterised as much by force as by peace or by the relation of force to peace. (shrink)

Frege's work was largely devoted to an attempt to argue that the'basic laws of arithmetic' are truths of logic. That attempt had both philosophical and formal aspects. The present note offers an introduction to both of these, so that readers will be able to appreciate contemporary discussions of the philosophical significance of 'Frege's Theorem'.

The paper formulates and proves a strengthening of 'Frege's Theorem', which states that axioms for second-order arithmetic are derivable in second-order logic from Hume's Principle, which itself says that the number of Fs is the same as the number of Gs just in case the Fs and Gs are equinumerous. The improvement consists in restricting this claim to finite concepts, so that nothing is claimed about the circumstances under which infinite concepts have the same number. 'Finite Hume's Principle' also suffices (...) for the derivation of axioms for arithmetic and, indeed, is equivalent to a version of them, in the presence of Frege's definitions of the primitive expressions of the language of arithmetic. The philosophical significance of this result is also discussed. (shrink)

Hurricane Katrina offered a revealing snapshot of the historical vulnerability that New Orleans and Gulf Coast residents have long experienced and continue to face. In particular, population groups with special health needs—those suffering from debilitating chronic diseases—were among those most at risk during the storm. Focusing specifically on diabetic evacuees during and after Katrina, this essay examines how the lack of planning during the disaster led to diminished access to dialysis as well as poor food and inadequate insulin management in (...) evacuation shelters. In so doing, it underscores the strong links between disasters and public health concerns such as elevated risks for complications, emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and reduced life expectancy for individuals with diabetes. As the case of Katrina powerfully illustrates, populations suffering from chronic diseases like diabetes suffer disproportionately from disasters and other disruptive events. (shrink)

Hartry Field has suggested that we should adopt at least a methodological deflationism: "[W]e should assume full-fledged deflationism as a working hypothesis. That way, if full-fledged deflationism should turn out to be inadequate, we will at least have a clearer sense than we now have of just where it is that inflationist assumptions... are needed". I argue here that we do not need to be methodological deflationists. More precisely, I argue that we have no need for a disquotational truth-predicate; that (...) the word 'true', in ordinary language, is not a disquotational truth-predicate; and that it is not at all clear that it is even possible to introduce a disquotational truth-predicate into ordinary language. If so, then we have no clear sense how it is even possible to be a methodological deflationist. My goal here is not to convince a committed deflationist to abandon his or her position. My goal, rather, is to argue, contrary to what many seem to think, that reflection on the apparently trivial character of T-sentences should not incline us to deflationism. (shrink)

Øystein Linnebo has recently shown that the existence of successors cannot be proven in predicative Frege arithmetic, using Frege's definitions of arithmetical notions. By contrast, it is shown here that the existence of successor can be proven in ramified predicative Frege arithmetic.