The purpose of this book is to develop a terminological structure in which private perceptions can be discussed publicly without bringing into existence the usual unnecessary philosophical problems of confused usage of language. chisholm displays an appraisive, quasi-ethical use of language, whereby he claims that a thing has some particular sensible property is to have adequate evidence that it actually does have that property. (staff).

Franz Brentano developed an original theory of intrinsic value which he attempted to base on his philosophical psychology. Roderick Chisholm presents here a critical exposition of this theory and its place in Brentano's general philosophical system. He gives a detailed account of Brentano's ontology, showing how Brentano tried to secure objectivity for ethics not through a theory of practical reason, but through his theory of the intentional objects of emotions and desires. Professor Chisholm goes on to develop certain suggestions about (...) intrinsic value made by Brentano and his students, and discusses their relevance to theodicy and the problem of evil. Brentano, as the teacher of Husserl, Meinong, Twardowski, and others, stands at the origin of the phenomenological tradition and of the Polish school of philosophy that developed after World War I. He has also had considerable influence on Anglo-American philosophy. This book will interest those concerned with the origins of phenomenological value theory and more generally with the connections between ethics and philosophical psychology. (shrink)

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1964, given by Roderick M. Chisholm (1916-1999), an American philosopher.

_The Foundations of Knowing _ was first published in 1982. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. This collection of essays on the foundations of empirical knowledge brings together ten of Roderick M. Chisholm's most important papers in epistemology, three of them published for the first time, the others significantly revised and expanded for this edition. The essays in Part I constitute a (...) thoroughgoing defense of foundationalism—the doctrine that our justification for believing always rests upon a self-evident basis. In Part II, Chisholm applies foundationalist principles to various areas within the theory of knowledge, and in part III he presents a history of twentieth-century American epistemology. "Roderick M. Chisholm's work has been most influential both in the development of epistemology and in the widespread application of his analytic method. I am sure this publication featuring the unification of his views will be of great value to those working on the central issues of philosophy." Hector-Neri Castañeda, Indiana University Roderick Chisholm is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of philosophy at Brown University. Among his books are _Perceiving: A Philosophical Study, Theory of Knowledge, Person and Object_,and _The First Person _. (shrink)

ONE KIND OF PHILOSOPHICAL PUZZLEMENT arises when we have an apparent conflict of intuitions. If we are philosophers, we then try to show that the apparent conflict of intuitions is only an apparent conflict and not a real one. If we fail, we may have to say that what we took to be an apparent conflict of intuitions was in fact a conflict of apparent intuitions, and then we must decide which of the conflicting apparent intuitions is only an apparent (...) intuition. But if we succeed, then both of the intuitions will be preserved. Since there was an apparent conflict, we will have to conclude that the formulation of at least one of the intuitions was defective. And though the formulation may be imbedded in our ordinary language, we will have to say that, strictly and philosophically, a different formulation is to be preferred. But to make it clear that we are not rejecting the intuition we are reformulating, we must show systematically how to interpret the ordinary formulation into the philosophical one. The extent to which we can show this will be one mark of our success in dealing with the philosophical puzzle. Another will be the extent to which our proposed solution contributes to the solution of still other philosophical puzzles. (shrink)

Roderick Chisholm has been for many years one of the most important and influential philosophers contributing to metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. This book can be viewed as a summation of his views on an enormous range of topics in metaphysics and epistemology. Yet it is written in the terse, lucid, unpretentious style that has become a hallmark of Chisholm's work. The book is an original treatise designed to defend an original, non-Aristotelian theory of categories. Chisholm argues that there (...) are necessary things and contingent things; necessary things being things that are not capable of coming into being or passing away. He defends the argument from design, and thus includes the category of necessary substance (God). Further contentions of the essay are that attributes are also necessary beings, but not necessary substances, and that human beings are contingent substances but may not be material substances. (shrink)

Brentano uses terms in place of predicates (e.g. "a thinker" in place of "thinks") and characterizes the "is" of predication in terms of the part-whole relation. Taking as his ontological data certain intentional phenomena that are apprehended with certainty, he conceives the substance-accident relation as a defmeable type of part-whole relation which we can apprehend in "inner perception". He is then able to distinguish the following types of individual or ens reale: substances; primary individuals which are not substances; accidents; aggregates; (...) and boundaries. (shrink)

In the paper Plantinga refers to, I had set forth three axioms for what I had called the strict and philosophical sense of the term "part," or "proper part." These axioms tell us, in effect, that the expression "x is an S-part of y" expresses a relation that is transitive, asymmetric, and such that x bears it to y at all times that y exists. The latter clause may be put in Plantinga’s terms by saying "x bears it to y (...) at every time in every world in which y exists." Plantinga points out that there are several other relations that also have these properties, for example, the relation of proper set inclusion among sets of contingent objects. He asks, therefore, whether it is possible to supplement my three axioms in such a way that they single out properties that are peculiar to the relation of strict proper part. (shrink)

We first summarize and comment upon a 'calculus of intrinsic preferability' which we have presented in detail elsewhere. 1 Then we set forth 'the problem of supererogation' - a problem which, according to some, has presented difficulties for deontic logic. And, finally, we propose a moral or deontic interpretation of the calculus of intrinsic preferability which, we believe, enables us to solve the problem of supererogation.

The concepts of a spatially continuous substance, of spatial dimension and of spatial boundary are here "analyzed out" of the concepts of individual thing, of constituent and of coincidence. The analysis is based upon the theory of spatial coincidence that was developed by Brentano. Its presuppositions are essentially these: (1) if there are spatial objects of any kind, then there are continuous spatial substances. (2) such substances are possibly such that they are not constituents of any individual thing; and (3) (...) they contain constituents (namely, boundaries) which are necessarily such that they are constituents of spatial substances. (shrink)

Körner has made an important distinction between dependent and independent particulars, noting that any adequate theory of categories will divide particulars into those that are independent and those that are not. In the present paper, the concept of a spatial boundary is used to illustrate the concept of a dependent particular. It is suggested that, if we follow Brentano and think of such boundaries as ontologically dependent upon the things of which they may be said to be boundaries, then we (...) will be able to throw light upon a number of philosophical questions about the spatial continuum. These questions pertain to such topics as: the distinction between parts and boundaries; the definition of dimensionality; and the nature of contact and physical continuity. (shrink)