bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Locke's Triangles
Authors: Harris N.G.E.
Published: June 2016

One of the most frequently discussed passages from Locke's An Essay Concerning the Human Understanding is that which occurs in IV.vii.9, where he writes:

… the Ideas first in the Mind, ‘tis evident, are those of particular Things, from whence, by slow degrees, the Understanding proceeds to some few general ones; which being taken from the ordinary and familiar Objects of Sense, are settled in the Mind, with general Names to them. Thus particular Ideas are first received and distinguished, and so Knowledge got about them: and next to them, the less general, or specifick, which are next to particular. For abstract Ideas are not so obvious or easie to Children, or the yet unexercised Mind, as particular ones. If they seem so to grown Men, ’tis only because by constant and familiar use they are made so. For when we nicely reflect upon them, we shall find, that general Ideas are Fictions and Contrivances of the Mind, that carry difficulty with them, and do not so easily offer themselves, as we are apt to imagine. For example, Does it not require some pains and skill to form the general Idea of a Triangle, (which is yet none of the most abstract, comprehensive, and difficult,) for it must be neither Oblique, nor Rectangle, neither Equilateral, Equicrural, nor Scalenon; but all and none of these at once. In effect, it is something imperfect, that cannot exist; an Idea wherein some parts of several different and inconsistent Ideas are put together.

I shall not pretend that what Locke is claiming in this passage is wholly clear, nor shall I try to defend the views expressed in it. My intention is to show that what he says here has been widely misinterpreted. It has become common to treat the contents of the passage as aberrant; as presenting a ridiculous variant on his main thesis on abstraction, or that very thesis elaborated with a foolish rhetorical flourish. But what is said in this passage is not something said elsewhere, nor is it an alternative to something said elsewhere. Here, and nowhere else, Locke shows awareness of implications for his doctrine of abstraction, of views he holds about simple ideas.
Necessity, Certainty, and the A Priori
Authors: Casullo Albert
Published: June 2016

Empiricist theories of knowledge are attractive for they offer the prospect of a unitary theory of knowledge based on relatively well understood physiological and cognitive processes. Mathematical knowledge, however, has been a traditional stumbling block for such theories. There are three primary features of mathematical knowledge which have led epistemologists to the conclusion that it cannot be accommodated within an empiricist framework: 1) mathematical propositions appear to be immune from empirical disconfirmation; 2) mathematical propositions appear to be known with certainty; and 3) mathematical propositions are necessary. Epistemologists who believe that some nonmathematical propositions, such as logical or ethical propositions, cannot be known a posteriori also typically appeal to the three factors cited above in defending their position. The primary purpose of this paper is to examine whether any of these alleged features of mathematical propositions establishes that knowledge of such propositions cannot be a posteriori.
Reply to Terzis
Authors: Darwall Stephen L.
Published: June 2016

George Terzis makes several objections to claims and arguments I advanced in Impartial Reason. I cannot take them all up, but I would like to respond to some, which I shall group into three: (a) whether reasons depend on norms applying to all rational agents; (b) how the unity of agency relates to such norms; and (c) the self-support condition. Since the objections concerning (a) cut most deeply against the central thesis of Impartial Reason, I shall begin with them. Before I do that, however, I should make some preliminary remarks.

Impartial Reason offers an internalist theory of reasons, but one that is, I believe, more sensitive to the normative character of reasons than internalist theories usually are.1 A theory of reasons is internalist if it holds that something's being a reason depends somehow on its capacity to affect motivation. Unlike internalist theories that identify reasons with de facto motives, however, IR insists on the normative character of reasons as tending to justify conduct as rational. It does this by holding that a reason to act is something which motivates when appropriately (or rationally) considered. The normative or justificatory weight of reasons, then, is held to derive from a normative ideal of rational consideration. Reasons inherit as justificatory weight the motivational force they would come to have in an ideally rational process of practical reflection.
Egalitarianism and the Separateness of Persons
Authors: McKerlie Dennis
Published: June 2016

Different people live different lives. Each life consists of experiences that are not shared with the other lives. These facts are sometimes referred to as the ‘separateness of persons.’ Some writers have appealed to the separateness of persons to support or to criticize moral views. John Rawls thinks that the separateness of persons supports egalitarianism, while Robert Nozick believes that it supports a rights view. I will call the claim that the separateness of persons counts in favor of a particular moral view the ‘positive connection.’ Both these writers think that utilitarianism is objectionable because it ignores the moral importance of the separateness of persons. I will call the claim that the separateness of persons counts against a moral view the ‘negative connection.’

In this paper I will discuss several different attempts at explaining the connection between the separateness of persons and specific moral views. I will begin by describing how egalitarianism, unlike utilitarianism, treats individual lives as morally important units. I will discuss the kind of egalitarianism that aims at equality, but the same points could be made about egalitarian views that give priority to helping the worst off or require that everyone should receive at least a specified minimum share of resources or happiness.
Seizing the Hedgehog by the Tail: Taylor on the Self and Agency
Authors: De Sousa Ronald
Published: June 2016

For those of us who are sympathetic to the research program of cognitive science, it is especially useful to face the deepest and sharpest critic of that program. Charles Taylor, who defines himself as a ‘hedgehog’ (1) whose ‘single rather tightly related agenda’ fits into a very ancient and rather elusive debate between naturalism and anti-naturalism, may well be that critic. My ambition in this paper is to distill Taylor’s central objection to the cognitive science approach to agency and the self as it is expressed throughout Human Agency and Language. After trying to set out the core of this objection, I want to remark on some rather curious aspects of the dispute of which it is a part, and then sketch, in relation to one or two examples, what I take to be the most promising line of resistance to Taylor’s attack. I conclude with a proposal as to how Taylor may – narrowly – escape one logical consequence of his position, according to which he should stop knocking the cognitive science program and instead go to work building a robot.
Charles Taylor On Expression and Subject-Related Properties
Authors: Davis Steven
Published: June 2016

Charles Taylor claims that ‘… human life is constituted by self-understanding,’ a self-understanding which is achieved in part by our capacity to use language (9). Because of this, the philosophy of language is important in Taylor’s philosophical views and central to these are his views on expression. I shall argue that one way to understand Taylor’s theory of expression is to place it within a theory of speech acts. And I shall try to show that this gives us a way to interpret his contention that expression is a subject-related property and that there cannot be an objective science of it. Finally, I shall argue that Taylor’s grounds for the latter claim are defective and that this leaves open the possibility that there can be an objective science of expression.
A Challenge to Neo-Lockeanism
Authors: Roemer John E.
Published: June 2016

The neo-Lockean justification of the highly unequal distribution of income in capitalist societies is based upon two key premises: that people are the rightful owners of their labor and talents, and that the external world was, in the state of nature, unowned, and therefore up for grabs by people, who could rightfully appropriate parts of it subject to a ‘Lockean proviso.’ The argument is presented by Nozick. Counter-proposals to Nozick’s, for the most part, have either denied the premise that people should morally be viewed as the owners of their talents, or have challenged Nozick’s Lockean proviso.

Rawls, and to a more limited extent Ronald Dworkin, deny self-ownership. As Rawls writes: ‘…the difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common asset … The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well. No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.’ Behind the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, those who deliberate about justice are deprived of knowledge about characteristics whose distribution is morally arbitrary. In Dworkin’s proposal for resource egalitarianism, agents calculate the insurance policy they would hypothetically ask for, were they denied knowledge of what talents they will draw in the birth lottery. Compensation for unequal talents is, according to Dworkin, properly made by taxing and transferring income according to the way it would have been distributed as a consequence of such insurance. Dworkin’s veil of ignorance is thin, because agents in the appropriate posture for deliberating about income distribution know their preferences and attitudes toward risk, but not their talents. For both Rawls and Dworkin, the self-ownership premise is challenged by constructing a veil of ignorance in which people are deprived of knowledge of certain personal characteristics, knowledge of which would bias their opinions, from a moral viewpoint.
How to Change Your Mind
Authors: Carter William R.
Published: June 2016

It no longer is true in a metaphorical sense only that a person can have a change of heart. We might grant this much — allow that a person may have one heart at one time and have another (numerically different) heart at still another time — and also resist the idea that a person can have a change of mind in anything other than a qualitative sense. In the discussion that follows, this standard view of the matter is called into question. If the argument presented here is sound, it can happen both that one person has numerically different minds at different times and that different people have the same (one) mind at different times. These possibilities, as I take them to be, call for reassessment of some well entrenched assumptions concerning personal identity and responsibility. In particular, they suggest that it may not be true that person A bears responsibility for making decisions person B previously made only on the condition that A is the same person as B.
Self-Deception and Practical Reasoning
Authors: Audi Robert
Published: June 2016

Self-deception is commonly viewed as a condition that bespeaks irrationality. This paper challenges that view. I focus specifically on the connection between self-deception and practical reasoning, an area which, despite its importance for understanding self-deception, has not been systematically explored. I examine both how self-deception influences practical reasoning and how this influence affects the rationality of actions produced by practical reasoning. But whatisself-deception? There are many accounts, yet there is probably none sufficiently well known and compelling to serve as an adequate background given my purposes. Hence, I shall briefly present my own account of self-deception and, on that basis, explore its connections with practical reasoning and rational action.
Kent Bach on Good Arguments
Authors: Sobel Jordan Howard
Published: June 2016

I take two passages in a recent paper by Kent Bach—‘Newcomb's Problem: The $1,000,000 Solution,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17 (1987) 409-25—as occasions for several observations about practical arguments and senses in which they may ‘work’ and be ‘good.’

First Passage

…one can only be amused by those advocates of BOTH who…realize that takers of BOTH almost always get but $1K whereas takers of ONE almost always get $1M, and proceed to bemoan the fact that rational people do so much worse than irrational ones. Despite their logical scruples, they seem to have a curiously low standard of what constitutes a good argument. Evidently they would rather be right than rich. One would think that a solution requires not merely a seemingly irrefutable argument but an argument that works, one whose use is likely to pay off to the tune of at least $1M. (412)
Analytical Marxism and Morality
Authors: Sayers Sean
Published: June 2016

Marxism has probably been the most influential philosophy of this century. Until recently, however, it was either ignored or dismissed without serious consideration by the great majority of English-speaking philosophers. If the situation is now changing, that is thanks in good measure to the development of analytical Marxism.
How To Make No Sense of Marx
Authors: Mandel Ernest
Published: June 2016

Professor Jon Elster advances the proposal that Marx – and Marxists–really stand for ‘methodological individualism,’ as opposed to ‘methodological collectivism.’ He defines ‘methodological individualism’ in the following terms:

Social science explanations are seen as three-tiered. First, there is a causal explanation of mental states, such as desires and beliefs … Next, there is intentional explanation of individual action in terms of the underlying beliefs and desires … Finally, there is causal explanation of aggregated phenomena in terms of the individual actions that go into them. The last form is the specifically Marxist contribution to the methodology of the social sciences.1
Elster, Marx and Methodology
Authors: McCarney Joseph
Published: June 2016

This paper is concerned with the treatment by Jon Elster of methodological aspects of Marx’s work, and, in particular, with his assessment of Marx’s distinctive contribution to methodology. The relevant material is to be found in a variety of writings with the most complete and systematic presentation in Making Sense of Marx. The issues to be discussed here comprise, of course, only a single dimension of Elster’s view of Marx. It is, however, a strategic one whose influence is felt throughout the whole. Moreover, it is the dimension which is closest to the intellectual interests of Elster himself. Prominent among those interests has been the question of the relevance of methods of formal reasoning, particularly of modal logic and of game theory, to the study of society. Hence, the present emphasis should take one near the heart of Elster’s Marx, and offer a perspective on his thought in general.
Marxism and Popular Politics: The Microfoundations of Class Conflict
Authors: Little Daniel
Published: June 2016

A particularly important topic for Marxist theory is that of popular politics: the ways in which the underclasses of society express their interests and values through collective action. Classical Marxism postulates a fundamental conflict of interest among classes. It holds that exploited classes will come to an accurate assessment of their class interests, and will engage in appropriate collective actions to secure those interests. The result is a predicted variety of forms of underclass collective action: boycotts, rent strikes, tax and food riots, rebellion, and revolution. Underclass members of society instigate and support such protests because it is in their material class interest to do so. It will emerge, however, that this account is too schematic to provide a basis for explanation of popular politics. The microfoundations approach to Marxist theory will prove useful in this context because it directs us to some of the resources needed to provide a more adequate account of popular collective action.
Methodological Individualism, Psychological Individualism and the Defense of Reason
Authors: Schmitt Richard
Published: June 2016

Jon Elster believes that methodological individualism is self-evident (Elster 1986, 66). Not finding it so, and being suspicious of philosophers who claim that their views are so obvious as to demand no arguments in their favor, I went back to retrace the outlines of the methodological individualism debate. It turns out that the participants to the debate disagree widely as to what they are arguing about; it is not obvious to them what methodological individualism is. The defenders of methodological individualism agree with their critics much more than those critics acknowledge. Each side ascribes views to the other which its proponents disown explicitly.
Second Thoughts on Property Relations and Exploitation*
Authors: Roemer John E.
Published: June 2016

The definition of capitalist exploitation that I put forth was as follows. Let a society be divided into a coalition S and its complement S’. S is exploited and S’ is exploiting if: (1) S would be better off if it withdrew with its per capita share of productive, alienable assets; (2) S’ would be worse off if it withdrew with its per capita share of productive, alienable assets; and (3) S’ would be worse off if S withdrew from society with its own assets. Call this the property relations (PR) definition of exploitation. I favored the PR definition over the traditional approach, which focuses upon the relationship between capitalist and worker mediated by a labor market and consummated at the point of production, because the classical approach fails to locate the source of exploitation in the unequal and unfair distribution of the productive assets.
John Roemer’s Economic Philosophy and the Perils of Formalism
Authors: Christie Drew
Published: June 2016

John Roemer’s recent work uses the mathematics of Social Choice Theory to examine the structure of socialist ideals. One striking conclusion is that the social ownership of the means of production entails the strict equalization of ‘utility.’1The conclusion is surprising. While of course opposing many existing inequalities, socialists (as opposed to their critics) have not traditionally understood socialism to require strict equalization. Marx, for example, is scathing in his criticism of levelling, which he sees as a form of ‘crude’ communism.2

This paper is both exposition and critique. By way of exposition, I show with less than full mathematical rigor what several of Roemer’s axioms of social ownership mean and why they entail the equality of utility.
Two Kinds of Naming in the Sophist
Authors: Stough Charlotte
Published: June 2016

A familiar tradition in Plato scholarship has it that self-predication is one of the most important issues to be settled in an attempt to understand Plato‘s metaphysical views. Perhaps only latent in the initial formulations of the theory of Forms, the problem becomes manifest in the Parmenides, especially in the Third Man Argument where the assumption that a Form can have the property that it is helps to generate a vicious regress destructive of the notion of a single Form over many particulars.
Marx's Theory of Revolutionary Change
Authors: Panichas George E. , Hobart Michael E.
Published: June 2016

Ever since the appearance over ten years ago of G.A. Cohen‘s path breaking book, Karl Marx‘s Theory of History: A Defence, a number of philosophers have continued the extensive reconsideration of historical materialism launched by Cohen‘s work. These efforts have largely recast the debates about Marx‘s theory of history, and they have done so from the premise that historical materialism embodies a set of substantive claims as appropriately subject to analytical scrutiny as those of any other viable theory.
Hume on Responsibility and Punishment
Authors: Russell Paul
Published: June 2016

In this paper I pursue two closely related objectives. First, I articulate and describe the nature and character of Hume‘s theory of punishment. Second, in light of this account, I offer an assessment of the contemporary interest and value of Hume‘s theory.
Heterosexuality and Feminist Theory*
Authors: Overall Christine
Published: June 2016

Heterosexuality, which I define as a romantic and sexual orientation toward persons not of one's own sex, is apparently a very general, though not entirely universal, characteristic of the human condition. In fact, it is so ubiquitous a part of human interactions and relations as to be almost invisible, and so natural-seeming as to appear unquestionable. Indeed, the 1970 edition of The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘heterosexual’ as ‘pertaining to or characterized by the normal relation of the sexes.’
Parmenides on What There Is
Authors: Ketchum Richard J.
Published: June 2016

There is an interpretation of Parmenides’poem which has not yet had, but deserves, a hearing. It reconciles two of the most prominent views of the meaning of the verb ‘to be’ (‘ε ἷναι’) as it occurs in the poem. It agrees with the spirit of those who interpret ‘εἷναι’ as‘existence.’ It agrees with the letter of those who interpret ‘εἷν αι’ as the copula.
Friedrich Schleiermacher's Theory of the Limited
Communitarian State
Authors: Hoover Jeffrey
Published: June 2016

While Friedrich Schleiermacher‘s thought has been of overwhelming importance for theology during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, his influence as a philosopher is much more circumscribed and as a social and political thinker it is almost nil.
Truth and Stability in Descartes’ Meditations
Authors: Bennett Jonathan
Published: June 2016

The announced project of the Meditations, it is usually supposed, is to get rid of all error by rejecting everything that might be false, thus retaining only what is certainly true; the next step is to acquire further certainly true beliefs by valid inference from that foundation.
Marxism and Contemporary Political Philosophy, or: Why Nozick Exercises some Marxists more than he does any Egalitarian Liberals
Authors: Cohen G. A.
Published: June 2016

Now, we stand outcast and starving,

Mid the wonders we have made… .

(From ‘Solidarity Forever,’ by Ralph Chaplin)

I belong to a school of thought which has been called analytical Marxism. Some of the partisans of this position, and that includes me, are deeply engaged by questions in moral and political philosophy which have not, in the past, attracted the attention of Marxists. We are concerned with exactly what a commitment to equality requires, and with exactly what sort of obligations productive and talented people have to people who are relatively unproductive, or handicapped, or in special need. We seek a precise definition of what exploitation is, and we want to know exactly why it is wrong.
Autonomy and Personal History
Authors: Christman John
Published: June 2016

Virtually any appraisal of a person’s welfare, integrity, or moral status, as well as the moral and political theories built on such appraisals, will rely crucially on the presumption that her preferences and values are in some important sense her own. In particular, the nature and value of political freedom is intimately connected with the presupposition that actions one is left free to do flow from desires and values that are truly an expression of the ‘self-government’ of the agent. However, we all know that no person is self-made in the sense of being a fully formed and intact ‘will’ blossoming out of nowhere. Our values and preferences are explained by essential reference to a variety of influences that have come to bear on our development throughout our personal histories. What is needed, then, is to establish an account of self-determination or autonomy that would help determine just when and if the values and preferences we find ourselves with deserve the centrality that moral and political theories place on them.
Constrained Maximization
Authors: Sobel Jordan Howard
Published: June 2016

This paper is about David Gauthier’s concept of constrained maximization. Attending to his most detailed and careful account, I try to say how constrained maximization works, and how it might be changed to work better. In section I, that detailed account is quoted along with amplifying passages. Difficulties of interpretation are explained in section II. An articulation, a spelling out, of Gauthier's account is offered in section III to deal with these difficulties. Next, in section IV, constrained maximization thus articulated is tested on several choice problems and shown to be seriously wanting. It appears that there are prisoners’ dilemmas in which constrained maximizers would not cooperate to mutual advantage, but would interact sub-optimally just as straight-maximizers would. ‘Coordination problems’ are described with which constrained maximizers might, especially if transparent to one another, not be able to cope–problems in which they might not be able to make up their minds to do anything at all. And I prove that there are prisoners’ dilemmas that, though possible for real agents and for straight maximizers, are not possible for constrained maximizers, so that agents’ internalising dispositions of constrained maximization could not be of help in connection with such possibly impending dilemmas. Taking constrained maximization as it stands, there are many problems for which it does not afford the ‘moral solutions’ with which Gauthier would have it replace Hobbesian political ones. After displaying these shortcomings of constrained maximization as presently designed, I sketch, in section V, possible revisions that would reduce them, stressing that these revisions would not be cost-free. Whether finishing the job of fixing up and making precise constrained maximization would be worth the considerable trouble it would involve lies beyond the issues taken up in this paper. So, of course, do substantive comparisons of constrained maximization, perfected and made precise, and straight maximization.
Punishment and Loss of Moral Standing
Authors: Morris Christopher W.
Published: June 2016

When any man, even in political society, renders himself by his crimes obnoxious to the public, he is punished by the laws in his goods and person; that is, the ordinary rules of justice are, with regard to him, suspended for a moment, and it becomes equitable to inflict on him, for the benefit of society, what otherwise he could not suffer without wrong or injury?
The Practical Syllogism and Akrasia
Authors: McKerlie Dennis
Published: June 2016

Aristotle is often credited with views about practical reasoning, desire, and action collectively referred to as the theory of the practical syllogism.Some commentators are skeptical about the existence of any such general theory, but most would agree that a theory of some sort is outlined in the De Motu Animalium and that it influences Aristotle’s account of akrasia in the icomachean Ethics.

This paper will begin by describing the most important ideas in the De Motu Animalium discussion of the practical syllogism. The ideas are simple but I think that their implications and philosophical importance have not been appreciated. I will suggest that the practical syllogism is Aristotle’s model for the rational explanation of action. Other commentators have made this claim, but I think that it can be given a very precise sense. Aristotle thinks that an action can be rationally explained if the agent acts in response to the strength of the reasons that he sees for acting. The practical syllogism is an argument that expresses the reasons in favor of the action, so if the agent acts for those reasons the action is explained by the practical syllogism. The second part of the paper considers the work that the practical syllogism does in Aristotle’s account of akrasia. I will argue that in akrasia—at least in the most extreme kind of akrasia—the agent acts intentionally to satisfy a desire but the action cannot be explained by a practical syllogism. Aristotle distinguishes between explanation by the motivational strength of desires and explanation by a practical syllogism. The last part of this paper comments on David Charles’s interpretation of Aristotle’s views about desire, practical reason, and akrasia. Charles discusses the traditionally disputed questions in a provocative way, and more importantly his suggestions fit together into a complex and philosophically sophisticated reading of Aristotle. I disagree with his most important claims, but I can best explain and defend my own interpretation by contrasting it with his.
Offence and Virtue Ethics
Authors: Mellema Gregory
Published: June 2016

In his 1963 essay ‘Supererogation and Offence: A Conceptual Scheme for Ethics,’ Roderick Chisholm describes a category of human acts which he calls ‘offences’:

A system of moral concepts which provides a place for what is good but not obligatory, should also provide a place for what is bad but not forbidden. For if there is such a thing as “non-obligatory well-doing” then it is plausible to suppose that there is also such a thing as “permissive ill-doing.” There is no term in moral literature, so far as I know, which has been used to designate just this latter class of actions; I shall refer to them as “offences.”

Some recognize the possibility of acts, commonly called acts of supererogation, which are morally good or praiseworthy but not obligatory to perform. In this passage, as well as in a later article co-authored with Ernest Sosa, Chisholm calls attention to the possibility of acts which are morally bad or blameworthy to perform, but whose performance is nevertheless not forbidden.
Virtue, Reason, and Principle
Authors: Wallace R. Jay
Published: June 2016

A common strategy unites much that philosophers have written about the virtues. The strategy can be traced back at least to Aristotle, who suggested that human beings have a characteristic function or activity (rational activity of soul), and that the virtues are traits of character which enable humans to perform this kind of activity excellently or well. The defining feature of this approach is that it treats the virtues as functional concepts, to be both identified and justified by reference to some independent goal or end which they enable people to attain (human flourishing, rational perfection, participation in practices, ‘narrative unity’ in a life). Some recent philosophers seem to have hoped that by following this perfectionist strategy, we might attain a more convincing account of our moral practices than rule-based theories of ethics have been able to provide.
The Answering Machine Paradox
Authors: Sidelle Alan
Published: June 2016

Whatever disagreements analysts of indexical expressions may have, there is nearly universal agreement that the referents of utterances of ‘I,’ ‘here,’ and ‘now’ are, respectively, the utterer, the place of utterance, and the time of utterance. This seems to lead to the result that utterances of ‘I am here now’ are always true (or, if you like, true at the time of utterance). While they do not express necessary truths — no one is essentially at any particular place at any particular time — it looks like they should necessarily express truths; in this, ‘I am here now’ seems to resemble ‘I exist’. And we are sometimes aware of this sort of vacuity in these utterances; the theoretical result meshes well with our everyday experience.
Container Metaphysics According to Aristotle’s Greek Commentators
Authors: Matthews Gareth B.
Published: June 2016

Aristotle’s little treatise the Categories, which stands, of course, at the very beginning of his corpus, presents a range of interpretive problems that are both interesting in themselves and also philosophically instructive. They can be divided into internal problems and external problems. The external problems are difficulties in harmonizing Aristotle’s ideas in the Categories with his later views. The internal ones are those presented by the treatise itself, taken, in so far as that is feasible, in isolation.
Aquinas on the Foundations of Knowledge
Authors: Stump Eleonore
Published: June 2016

Aquinas is sometimes taken to hold a foundationalist theory of knowledge. So, for example, Nicholas Wolterstorff says, “Foundationalism has been the reigning theory of theories in the West since the high Middle Ages. It can be traced back as far as Aristotle, and since the Middle Ages vast amounts of philosophical thought have been devoted to elaborating and defending it‥ ‥ Aquinas offers one classic version of foundationalism.” And Alvin Plantinga says, “we can get a better understanding of Aquinas … if we see [him] as accepting some version of classical foundationalism. This is a picture or total way of looking at faith, knowledge, justified belief, rationality, and allied topics. This picture has been enormously popular in Western thought; and despite a substantial opposing ground-swell, I think it remains the dominant way of thinking about these topics.”
Is There Such a Thing as a Language?
Authors: Bar-On Dorit , Risjord Mark
Published: June 2016

‘There is no such thing as a language,’ Donald Davidson tells us (‘A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs,’ in Ernest LePore, ed., Truth and Interpretation [Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1986] 433-46, 446). Though this is a startling claim in its own right, it seems especially puzzling coming from a leading theorizer about language. Over the years, Davidson’s important essays have sparked the hope that there is a route to a positive, nonskeptical theory of meaning for natural languages. This hope would seem to be dashed if there are no natural languages. Unless Davidson’s radical claim is a departure from his developed views, the Davidsonian program appears to have undermined itself.

In a recent book, Donald Davidson’s Philosophy of Language: An Introduction (which Davidson has enthusiastically endorsed), Bjorn Ramberg promises to establish that Davidson's startling claim is not an aberration. Rather, it 'emerges as a natural development of his theory of meaning' (2). He reads the claim that there is no such thing as a language as the claim that the concept of a language has no useful theoretical role. Like the concepts of meaning and reference, it is a 'ghost of reification' which Davidson attempts to 'exorcise' from our philosophical thinking about linguistic communication. All three concepts can be seen as mere ladders to be kicked away once the edifice of a Davidsonian theory of linguistic communication is properly erected on the sole foundation of the concept of truth. The result, he assures us, ‘is not a theory which undercuts itself, but a comprehensive, coherent account of the phenomenon of linguistic communication’ (3).
Necessitation and Justification in Kant’s Ethics
Authors: Timmons Mark
Published: June 2016

In the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, Kant claims that hypothetical imperatives are analytic and that categorical imperatives are synthetic. This claim plays a crucial role in Kant’s attempt to establish moral ‘oughts’ as categorically binding on all rational agents, for by classifying moral statements according to this distinction, Kant hopes to uncover the sort of justification required to establish such statements. However, Kant’s application of the analytic/ synthetic distinction to imperatives is problematic. For one thing, this distinction was developed by Kant in connection with indicative, subject-predicate statements, which would seem to cast doubt on the idea that imperatives can be either analytic or synthetic. Moreover, Kant’s claim that hypothetical imperatives are analytic and categorical imperatives are synthetic seems to conflict with other claims in his moral works. For example, in the Groundwork, Kant claims that hypothetical imperatives are (compared to categorical imperatives) unproblematic since they can be established on the basis of experience (G, 419-20, 49-50). But this is incompatible with the idea that hypothetical imperatives are analytic, since presumably all analytic statements are a priori — established independently of experience.
Justifying Democracy
Authors: Fisk Milton
Published: June 2016

The focus here will be on democracy as a social good. Today people want to live in a democratic society. But why do they see this as a good? Exploring this question will lead us to a justification of democracy. I shall not be concerned primarily with justifying full or ideal democracy; for it is important to show the positive effects of even modest democratic gains. I do not think one can justify democracy in the more demanding sense of showing it has consequences that any rational being would desire. So I shall be content to give what might seem merely a social, or group-based, rather than a purely rational justification of democracy.
A Rationalist Manifesto
Authors: BonJour Laurence
Published: June 2016

Perhaps the most pervasive conviction within the Western epistemological tradition is that in order for a belief to constitute knowledge it is necessary (though not sufficient) that it be epistemically justified: that the person in question have a reason or warrant which makes it at least highly likely that the belief is true. Historically, most epistemologists have distinguished two main sources from which such justification might arise. It has seemed obvious to all but a very few that many beliefs are justified by appeal to one’s experience of the world. But it has seemed equally obvious to most that there are other beliefs, including many of the most important ones that we have, which are justified in a way which is entirely independent of any appeal to such experience, justified, as it is usually put, a priori, by reason or pure thought alone.
Straight Versus Constrained Maximization
Authors: Sobel Jordan Howard
Published: June 2016

David Gauthier stages a competition between two arguments, each of which purports to decide once for all transparent agents which is best, being a straight or being a constrained maximizer. The first argument, which he criticizes and rejects, is for the greater utility, on a certain weak assumption, of straight maximization for all transparent agents. The second, which he endorses, is for the greater utility on the same weak assumption of constrained maximization for all transparent agents.

In Section I, Gauthier’s account of constrained maximization is presented, and his use in the two arguments of the idea of choosing a disposition to choose actions is noted. Section II is about the unfortunate argument that Gauthier criticizes. This argument is flawed in ways additional to those he notices, but a less ambitious form of reasoning can, for individuals whose probabilities and values are right, be good for the greater expected utility of straight maximization. Section III takes up the argument that Gauthier endorses and maintains that it is wrong in a way specific to it as well as in ways closely related to all of the first argument’s noted flaws. An Appendix features a three-person prisoners’ dilemma and includes demonstrations of principal conclusions reached in the body of this paper.
Surviving Souls
Authors: Moser Paul , vander NAT Arnold
Published: June 2016

What exactly are we conscious beings? Do we have immaterial souls, souls that are substances and can survive the destruction of our physical bodies? Richard Swinburne has recently given an affirmative answer to the latter question on the basis of a strikingly simple Cartesian argument. This paper shows why Swinburne’s argument ultimately fails, owing to an instructive dilemma concerning the logical possibility of conscious beings’ surviving bodily destruction. Perhaps we do have substantial immaterial souls, but Swinburne’s Cartesian argument, we shall see, does not cogently deliver the conclusion that we do.
Liberalism and the Value of Community1
Authors: Mason Andrew
Published: June 2016

Over the past decade or so the term ‘communitarianism’ has been applied to a wide range of positions with great variation between them. This is not in itself an objection to its continued use, for a concept may be coherent and illuminating even though it shelters considerable diversity. What is troubling about the body of literature now labelled as communitarian is that it frequently appeals to images of community without giving the notion the analytical attention it deserves and that we have come to expect in relation to other central political concepts such as ‘liberty’ and ‘justice.’ What I propose to do in this paper is to focus on a particular understanding of community which I think has been neglected in recent discussions, largely because it has not been sufficiently distinguished from others, and then to raise a question in the light of it which has been at the forefront of the debate: viz., can liberalism in its currently dominant form truly respect the value and importance of community? Several writers have responded to the critiques of liberalism develoged in the work of those such as Michael Sandel and Alasdair Macintyre by arguing that the basic framework of liberal thought is fully compatible with a due appreciation of community. Joel Feinberg, for example, attempts to show that ‘one can preserve one’s allegiance to personal autonomy in the way that liberalism requires while fully acknowledging the central and indispensable importance of community in human lives.’ I shall register some doubts about whether liberalism can show proper respect for community when ‘community’ is understood in the way I describe.
The Paradox of Ideology
Authors: Schwartz Justin
Published: June 2016

Marx’s social theory seems to involve a sharp case of a well-known paradox in sociology of knowledge. The puzzle arises when we discover on the basis of scientific inquiry that belief in scientific claims is produced and maintained by noncognitive social interest or positions. The worry is that belief so produced is for that reason suspect. A cognitive interest is an intrinsic interest in the truth or warrant, or more broadly in the epistemic properties, of some claim or belief. But according to Marx’s theory of ideology,

The mode of production of material life conditions the … intellectual life-processes in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their social being, but on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.2
Paternalism and Friendship
Authors: Fox Ellen L.
Published: June 2016

Though much has been written about when paternalistic intervention is justified, and about how it is justified, much less has been written about who may do the intervening. This is a substantial lacuna in our understanding of the nature of justified paternalism. By examining the question of who it is that may most appropriately interfere with the course of our decision-making, we can learn something useful both about paternalism and about the nature of friendship.

In this essay I will argue that friendship and paternalistic intervention are linked. Friendship of the close, intimate variety that I will be discussing is in part constituted by the fact that one friend is morally justified in interfering with the other’s (problematic) decisions. Intimate friendship involves a partial meshing of identities. This meshing of identities manifests itself in part by the liberties that one friend takes in guiding the life of the other. Paternalistic intervention between friends can thus be justified because it expresses the union of the friends, and because it preserves that union.
Suppositions, Presuppositions, Ontology1
Authors: Hinckfuss Ian
Published: June 2016

It has been widely accepted in the past and it remains accepted in many quarters even now, that an ontologically economical (nominalist or fictionalist) position is to be rejected if the corresponding Platonic or otherwise ontologically prodigal discourse cannot be translated, paraphrased or otherwise ‘reduced’ to discourse exhibiting a more economical ontology. Such an attitude is often accompanied by

(a)

the claim that the prodigal ontology explains some important truths

and

(b)

the demand that the nominalist or fictionalist or economicalist provide an alternative explanation for those truths — perhaps in terms of ontologically economical ersatz substitutes for the prodigal entities.
Dretske on the Metaphysics of Freedom
Authors: McCann Hugh J.
Published: June 2016

Most philosophers of action have seen little or no connection between the individuation of action and questions of freedom and responsibility. Is this a mistake? According to a recent suggestion by Fred Dretske it may be. Dretske views overt actions not as observable events with a distinctive sort of causal history, but rather as causal sequences, in which a distinctive sort of inner cause produces the appropriate outcome. So when Jimmy voluntarily wiggles his ears, the motion of his ears is not his action; it is only a component of the action, its result. The entire action consists in an event-causal sequence wherein an inner event C causes the result: it is C’s causing the motion of Jimmy’s ears.
The Intelligibility of Spectrum Inversion
Authors: Johnsen Bredo C.
Published: June 2016

Christopher Peacocke has recently made an important and insightful effort to fashion a non-verificationist method for distinguishing sense from nonsense (or, as he puts it, genuine from spurious hypotheses). The argument is subtle and complex, and varies somewhat with each of his three target ‘spurious hypotheses’: that if a perfect fission of one person into two were to occur, one and only one of the resulting persons would be identical with the original; that another person’s visual experience can be qualitatively different from your own when you are both seeing the same object, even though your relevant brain states are physically identical and so are your environmental conditions; and that the entire material universe is moving undetectably at a particular uniform velocity with respect to absolute space. My own assessment of his efforts is that they are most successful against the third of these hypotheses, and that this is a function of the fact that of the three, it alone (from both Peacocke’s and my perspectives) clearly employs a problematic concept- that of absolute location. However, my purpose here is not to engage in a comprehensive evaluation of Peacocke’s project; it is rather to defend the extreme inverted spectrum hypothesis (henceforth EISH) against his attack. I shall argue not only that his argument against EISH fails, but that he is himself independently committed to its intelligibility. Beyond that, I shall point out some striking and, to my mind, welcome consequences of his plausible claims concerning the relations between his own proposal and certain other views concerning content theory; the consequences in question depend both on his positive proposal and on my reasons for rejecting his argument against the extreme inversion hypothesis.
Why Philosophers Disagree
Authors: Smart J.J.C.
Published: June 2016

Why is it that philosophers find it so hard to come to agreement? Many disputes that have gone on for centuries or even millennia are still unresolved, even though there has been increased conceptual sophistication on the part of the contending parties. Consider, for example, the question of free will, where libertarians still contest the field with determinists and compatibilists (who need not deny quantum mechanical indeterminism at the micro level).
Can Philosophy Exist?
Authors: Blackburn Simon
Published: June 2016

Near the beginning of this century an episode of note occurred in Vienna. In 1894 the University had commissioned Gustav Klimt to paint a series of panels depicting the triumph of light over darkness. The first panel that Klimt finished, in 1900, represented Philosophy. The Faculty, evidently, had hoped for something like Raphael's depiction of the School of Athens: Plato, Aristotle, perhaps Galileo and Hume and Kant and Mach, would discourse gravely whilst a suitably impressed crowd of bystanders looked on and learned.