bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Rawlsian Contractarianism: Liberal Equality or Inequality?
Authors: McDonald Virginia
Published: June 2016

This paper will examine Rawls’ Theory of Justice as the most coherent twentieth century restatement of the liberal egalitarian paradigm. It will examine Rawls’ assertion that his theory is in the tradition of the state of nature/contractarian formulation of that paradigm, with particular reference to the parallels between Locke's formulation and his own. The paper will note that in both formulations:

a) The principles of justice formulated are sub specie aeternitatis but it will be argued that in fact they are, in their more developed form under “more favourable” historical conditions, the principles acknowledged by liberal man.

b) The principles developed by men in “reasonably favourable conditions” (R., 5.82,542) are principles both of equality and inequality. However, it will be argued that the inequality principle takes precedence over the equality principle and, in fact, in its theoretical and practical manifestations, makes void the fair value of the equality principle itself.
Time Travel and Some Alleged Logical Asymmetries between Past and Future
Authors: Dwyer Larry
Published: June 2016

The subject of time travel has been receiving increasing attention in the recent philosophical literature. Most of the articles that deal with it have been concerned to defend the logical consistency of time travel against those who claim that it entails one or more contradictions. Two sorts of defences have been offered. The first sort of defence involves showing that time travel does not entail those consequences which other philosophers allege it does entail. The second sort of defence involves an admission that time travel does indeed involve that which its opponents allege it does involve, e.g., being in more than one place at a time, but arguing that such consequences in no way vitiate the logical consistency of this notion.

My first aim in this paper is to provide a defence of time travel of the second sort. More specifically, I want to cut the ground from under an argument which might run thus:

Time travel entails that certain effects can precede their causes.

It is logically impossible for an effect to precede its cause.
The Crucial Relation in Personal Identity
Authors: Kitcher Patricia
Published: June 2016

1. What is the Problem of Personal Identity?

Locke posed the problem of personal identity in one brief question, “What makes the same person?” This formulation is deceptively simple. My aim is to offer a new interpretation of the problem and to suggest a method for finding a solution.

Investigations of personal identity are usually cast in terms of finding the criterion for personal identity. Yet talk of criteria is ambiguous. In one sense of the term, the criterion of personal identity would be special evidence for personal identity. According to the second usage, the criterion of personal identity would be that state of affairs for which evidence for personal identity is evidence. We will not be concerned with the first construal. On that reading, the problem of personal identity would be an epistemological issue. But the basic question concerning personal identity, “What is one person?” does not appear to be an epistemological question.
The Refutation of Materialism
Authors: Puccetti Roland
Published: June 2016

Supposons qu'il soit possible de transplanter les centres de Ia douleur de Jones dans le cerveau de Smith. A mi-chemin pendant !'operation, on teste ces centres de Ia douleur en les stimulant électriquement in vitro. Y aurait-il de Ia douleur? L'argument de cet article est qu'il n'y en aurait pas, parce que Ia douleur doit avoir un possesseur. Sinon, il ne peut arriver que les centres de Ia douleur se déchargeant dans un cerveau soient en eux-mêmes Ia douleur. On peut logiquement transférer le mécanisms de Ia douleur, mais non Ia douleur elle-mêmes. Ainsi le materialisme est faux.

Suppose we live in a very advanced age of neurosurgical skills. We have a patient, Jones, with intractable pain. We have a second patient, Smith, with a long history of unintentional self-injury due to congenital absence of pain centres. So we decide to do double service by transplanting Jones's pain centres into Smith's brain.
Le Structuralisme et la Philosophie des Sciences Sociale
Authors: Lafrance Guy
Published: June 2016

Depuis que le structuralisme a franchi le seuil de Ia mode et que l'on parle maintenant volontiers d’ une ère post-structuraliste, le moment se prête davantage à une réflexion philosophique et critique sur ce type d'épistémè qui a pratiquement envahi tout le champ des sciences humaines. Quoique le structuralisme ait été une mode, et une mode qui a réussi, selon l'expression de Raymond Boudon,1 il reste toutefois encore difficile d'apprécier ses succès dans des travaux comme ceux de Foucault, d'Aithusser, de Barthes ou de Lacan. Là où cependant le succès est le plus évident c'est du côté des sciences sociales, en particulier du côté de Ia linguistique et de l'anthropologie.
On the Unifier—Multiplier Controversy
Authors: MacDonald C. A.
Published: June 2016

Many recent discussions of the identity and individuation of actions focus on attempts to find satisfactory answers to questions like, “When, if ever, is a shooting (stabbing, poisoning, etc.) a killing?” Those who attempt to answer such questions divide themselves, on the whole, into two opposing groups. I. Thalberg has conveniently labelled the members of one group ‘unifiers’, and the members of the other group ‘multipliers’.

The unifier account is commonly attributed to philosophers such as G. E. M. Anscombe and Donald Davidson. Proponents of this account characteristically believe that many non-basic actions (where ‘basic’ is defined in terms of bodily movements) such as shootings, killings, etc., are identical with those basic actions by means of which the non-basic ones are performed. This position is indicated in the following remarks:

… in moving her hand, the queen was doing something that caused the death of the king. These are two descriptions of the same event — the queen moved her hand in that way; she did something that caused the death of the king. (Or to put it, as I would rather, in terms of a definite description: The moving of her hand by the queen on that occasion was identical with her doing something that caused the death of the king.) Doing something that causes a death is identical with causing a death. But there is no distinction to be made between causing the death of a person and killing him.
Foundations Without Certainty
Authors: Sikora R. I.
Published: June 2016

There has been a revival of interest in Hegel of late among English-speaking philosophers. Although he is still regarded as maddeningly obscure, a number of important philosophers (including Quine, Sellars, Feyerabend and Rorty) have been attracted by a doctrine prominently associated with Hegel, the coherence theory of truth. In order to hold the coherence theory of truth, it is obvious that you must hold what might be called the coherence theory of truth-testing as well: for if this theory is wrong and we can test some statements (even if only in part) by, for example, introspection as well as in terms of coherence, truth must involve something more than just coherence. My arguments against the coherence theory of truth-testing, since it is implied by the coherence theory proper, are indirectly against the coherence theory as well. I also argue that unless some version of the Private Language Argument is successful, it is virtually impossible to defend the coherence theory of truth-testing (and hence the coherence theory proper) without denying the existence of experiences, thereby committing oneself to materialism.
Practical Skepticism and the Reasons for Action
Authors: Darwall Stephen L.
Published: June 2016

At least since Descartes's Meditations philosophers in the West have been concerned to defend the rationality of our beliefs from the threat of epistemological skepticism. The idea that there might be nothing which we know, or more radically, which we have even the slightest reason to believe, is one that many philosophers have thought to be deserving of serious attention. It seems somewhat odd, therefore, that there has not been similar attention given to what one might call practical skepticism. Is it not also possible that there is nothing which we have even the slightest reason to do? Of course, there is a sense in which epistemological skepticism might be thought to be the more basic problem. If there is nothing which we have any reason to believe, then it will follow that there is nothing which we have any reason to do. If some proposition is a reason that we have for doing something it must at least be the case that we have some reason to believe that proposition. But is practical skepticism merely a species of epistemological skepticism? I doubt it.
Rawls, Brandt, and the Definition of Rational Desires
Authors: Shope Robert K.
Published: June 2016

Philosophers, psychiatrists, and social scientists would welcome clarification of the distinction between rational and irrational desires. It may be proper to say that rational desires are those which manifest rationality (or which at least do not conflict with its manifestations). But since this seems a rather unilluminating characterization, philosophers sometimes offer definitions of what constitute such manifestations of rationality. I shall consider definitions provided by John Rawls and Richard Brandt. Their definitions are unsatisfactory mainly because they include subjunctive conditionals. An alternative approach, which avoids conditionals, is attractive. But it encounters so many additional problems that I shall conclude that we are not now in a position to define rationality in this area and must treat it as a state or disposition which to date has only been partially characterized. Thus, if we want a definition of the difference between rational and irrational desires, we must at present settle for the rather unexciting one mentioned above.
Can the Tale Be Told?
Authors: Woods John
Published: June 2016

The distinctive feature of Professor Purtill's interesting, though somewhat promissory, paper, is its willingness to have the tail of pragmatics wag the dog of semantics. I myself find the pre-emption unfortunate, though I should hasten to add that Professor Purtill and I share something of a common view about the problems that should be solved by a decent account of fictionality; and some of our own solutions happen in fact to coincide. We part company, however, in respect of the following two theses.

Thesis (1). Professor Purtill holds that the sentences literally constitutive of a piece of fiction are neither true nor false, that they do not make assertions, that (therefore) they do not make assertions about what they would appear to be about. Such sentences in fact tell tales, and in such nonassertive uses, they are spared the burdens of all but the limits of semantic significance. That is, they are not true and they are not false.
A Question About Sensations
Authors: Crossley David J.
Published: June 2016

Following the formulation of the Identity Theory by Place and Smart a few years ago, there was considerable discussion of subjective mental states and of the importance of first-person reports of mental events. One concern was that the logical status of first-person claims might commit us to belief in irreducible mental phenomena referred to by such propositions. If so the Identity Theory would be false. Kurt Baier went so far as to argue that the incorrigibility of propositions such as “I have a pain” demonstrates that Smart's identification of sensations with brain states and processes is untenable. While there is no point to reintroducing historical discussions it is worth remarking because a more general problem is reflected in this kind of debate. This is the problem of how we expect our ordinary intuitions and ways of talking about something to affect our theoretical view of it or vice versa. In this particular instance it manifests itself as the question of the extent to which a theory of persons is to be dictated to or decided by the common and generally accepted intuitions embedded in our psychological language.
Evans on Quantifiers
Authors: Geach P. T.
Published: June 2016

Gareth Evans's two articles on the syntax and semantics of pronouns unfortunately seem to have been written far more with the desire of showing Peter Geach to have been wrong all along the line than in an endeavour to formulate, clearly and coherently, a comprehensive theory of his own. Some scattered passages of constructive theorizing there are, and in the latter part of this note I shall have something to say about them; but the controversial motive prevails.

It would be wearisome for me, and unrewarding for readers, if I were to work through Evans's arguments against me in detail: his misrepresentations of me are frequent and gross, and exposure of them in detail, together with restatement of the arguments misrepresented, would take up many more pages than the articles themselves. I here document just two of the more flagrant examples; with this warning before their eyes, readers may be disposed not to believe Evans's account of my works without checking for themselves.
Justice and Capitalist Production: Marx and Bourgeois Ideology
Authors: Young Gary
Published: June 2016

Is capitalist production unjust? It is easy to think, upon first reading Marx, that he answers this question in the affirmative. And I shall argue that this naive reading is correct. This needs to be argued, however, for a more careful scrutiny of Marx's writings reveals passages in which he seems to call capitalist production just or fair. Relying upon these passages, Robert Tucker and Allen W. Wood have urged that, in Wood's words,

it is simply not the case that Marx's condemnation of capitalism rests on some conception of justice (whether explicit or implicit), and those who attempt to reconstruct a “Marxian idea of justice” from Marx's manifold charges against capitalism are at best only translating Marx's critique of capitalism, or some aspect of it, into what Marx himself would have consistently regarded as a false, ideological, or “mystified” form.

What Marx regarded as false and mystified, however, is not the practice of assessing social institutions as just or unjust, but rather the picture of those institutions, and especially of capitalist production, to be found in bourgeois ideology.
Weak Universal Egoism as a Non-ethical System
Authors: Carlson George R.
Published: June 2016

In his “Two Kinds of Moral Reasoning; Ethical Egoism as a Moral Theory”, Jesse Kalin defines ethical egoism as “the position that a person ought, all things considered, to do an action if and only if that action is in his overall self-interest”, by which he means that each person is ‘rationally justified in’ or ‘has conclusive reasons for’ acting thus, and not that ‘it is good', or that ‘it is desirable', or that ‘it conduces to any intrinsically desirable state of affairs', for each to act only self-interestedly.

In this way, Kalin seeks to formulate an egoism which he takes to be rational, insofar as, in the interests of consistency, the egoist holds a principle applicable to all, and yet is not committed, ex hypothesi, to valuing collective goods or states of affairs which would tend to compromise his own interests (e.g. everyone's actually acting egoistically).
Need There Be a Problem of Induction?
Authors: Brown Harold I.
Published: June 2016

The problem of induction has long been one of the central problems of empiricist epistemology. There are two main versions of this problem: to justify a strictly universal statement on the basis of a finite set of singular statements and to justify a new singular statement on the basis of some finite set of accepted singular statements. In both cases it is assumed that we have a set of singular statements with which to begin and that these singular statements are, somehow, provided by observation; neither of these assumptions will be disputed in this paper. But there is another assumption without which there might well be no problem of induction:

A. Any synthetic statement which is to be accepted as known must be justified on the basis of observation.

It is only because philosophers assume A that they are faced with the problem of showing how we can infer from statements which have been justified by observation to others which have not. It is this assumption which will concern us here, for if there are no adequate grounds for accepting A, the problem of induction may not arise at all.
Anti-Racism and Unlimited Freedom of Speech: An Untenable Dualism
Authors: Glass Marvin
Published: June 2016

Perhaps it is best to begin on a semi-autobiographical note. In my liberal days, Mill's arguments in On Liberty for freedom of speech struck me as a paradigm of rationality: the force and eloquence of his presentation, I then thought, could not fail to impress themselves on any mature member of our species. But I am a Marxist now, and more and more of my former political beliefs now strike me as less and less tenable. It was considerations such as the one that follows which have recently led me to modify drastically, and in some cases abandon entirely, my former political views vis à vis the question of freedom of speech.

Whenever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emenates from its class interests and its feelings of class superiority. The morality between Spartans and Helots, between planters and negroes, between princes and subjects, between nobles and returiers, between men and women, has been for the most part the creation of these class interests and feelings ….
Actions and De Re Beliefs
Authors: Feldman Richard H.
Published: June 2016

Many different analyses of the concept of de re belief have been proposed in recent years. Most of these analyses may be called ‘reductionist’ since they attempt to “reduce” de re belief to de dicta belief or to analyze de re belief in terms of de dicta belief. Some reductionist analyses are extremely liberal in their attribution of de re beliefs — they imply that people have de re beliefs in a variety of situations in which more restrictive analyses have no such implication. In this paper I will show that the most liberal of the reductionist theories, those Roderick Chisholm calls “latitudinarian theories”, are unacceptable.

Latitudinarian analyses have been proposed by many philosophers, including Ernest Sosa, Mark Pastin, and also, perhaps, W. V. Quine and Wilfrid Sellars.
The Relationship of Substances and Simple Natures in the Philosophy of Descartes
Authors: Drury Shadia B.
Published: June 2016

The purpose of this paper is to show that the ‘simple natures’ which appear in the Regulae are those very ‘modes’ and ‘attributes’ of ‘substance’ which appear in all of Descartes’ later works. Contrary to the opinions of some critics, I hope to show that simple natures were not discarded by Descartes for being inconsistent with his later philosophy; that is, if they were discarded at all! I also hope to show that simple natures do not have such a “wide berth” that they are inadequate in dealing with Descartes’ “mature philosophy”. On the contrary, I hope to make it sufficiently clear that they are indispensable for our understanding of the relationship between his epistemology and ontology.

Descartes’ account of ‘simple natures’ is of utmost importance to his epistemology. His account of ‘substance’ constitutes the very essence of his ontology. We shall see that while ‘simple natures’ are all we can know, ‘ substance’ is all that exists. Hence the relationship of simple natures to substance should aid us in understanding the relationship of thought to being. This relationship serves to illustrate the correspondence between knowledge and existence which is the hallmark of Cartesian thought.
Of Scepticism with Regard to Reason
Authors: Hunter Bruce
Published: June 2016

In the first three parts of Book I of the Treatise Hume presents a sketch of the operations of the human mind. The human mind receives impressions which it may reproduce as ideas in memory or imagination. In memory the qualitative content as well as the order and relation of impressions is retained. In producing ideas, imagination need reproduce only simple impressions; it need not reproduce complex impressions or the order and relation of impressions. Nonetheless the mind, including the imagination, does have a propensity to associate ideas in accordance with the principles or relations of resemblance, contiguity in space or time, and cause and effect. The cognitive function of imagination becomes inexplicable without this propensity to associate ideas in accordance with these three principles.
Church's Translation Argument
Authors: Leeds Stephen
Published: June 2016

What are the objects of the so-called ‘propositional attitudes’ — belief, desire, and the like? One of the best-known accounts holds them to be sentences. According to this account — which I shall call the ‘linguistic theory’ — an analysis of the logical form of a sentence like

(1) John believes that the moon is round

will see the word ‘that’ as a hidden pair of quotation marks: except for niceties of idiom, (1) might be written

(2) John believes ‘the moon is round’.

(2) asserts that a certain relation, the ‘believes’-relation, holds between John and the sentence ‘the moon is round’.
Ethical Egoism and Beyond
Authors: Sterba James P.
Published: June 2016

Consider the case of Gary Gyges, an otherwise normal human being who, for reasons of personal gain, has embezzled $300,000 while working at People's National Bank and is in the process of escaping to the South Sea Islands where he will have the good fortune to live a pleasant life protected by the local authorities and untroubled by any qualms of conscience. If we assume that in the society from which Gyges is fleeing moral standards are generally observed, Gyges's behavior would be obviously immoral. Is it possible, however, that Gyges, a rational person, may have had perfectly consistent reasons for acting immorally? Is it also possible that Gyges may not have had any moral reasons at all to refrain from his act of embezzlement?
Grammar and Understanding
Authors: Yu Paul
Published: June 2016

Despite significant advances in various special areas in the study of language, the question of what the basic nature of the theory of a language is remains controversial and unclear. In this paper we propose to rectify this situation and argue for a general perspective — one which only a few theorists have explicitly endorsed — by showing that it is at once theoretically illuminating and empirically plausible. This perspective consists of the following claims: (1) that the most basic theory of a language is a theory of communication viz., of understanding and production; (2) that a theory of communication in this sense presupposes a theory of thought; (3) that a grammar is most fruitfully thought of as (in a suitable sense) a component of a theory of communication; and (4) that so-called theories of meaning form a rather heterogeneous group, some of which being fragments of grammars, others being theories of thought, and still others being what are sometimes referred to as theories of reference. We shall be particularly concerned with (1) and (3) here.
Lucas Against Mechanism II
Authors: Lewis David
Published: June 2016

J. R. Lucas serves warning that he stands ready to refute any sufficiently specific accusation that he is a machine. let any mechanist say, to his face, that he is some particular machine M; Lucas will respond by producing forthwith a suitable Gödel sentence ϕM. Having produced ϕM, he will then argue that — given certain credible premises about himself — he could not have done so if the accusation that he was M had been true. let the mechanist try again; Lucas will counter him again in the same way. It is not possible to accuse Lucas truly of being a machine.
How to Tell the Left From the Right
Authors: McMurtry John
Published: June 2016

“If thou go on the left hand, thou shalt in this way be soon essayed.”

Words on the Cross to Sir Galahad, The Holy Grail, by Thomas Malory, Chapter XII

Words on the Cross to Sir Galahad,

The Holy Grail, by Thomas Malory, Chapter XII

Though left and right are fundamental terms of our social and political vocabulary, perhaps indeed the ultimate dividing concepts of ways of life on the earth today, their meaning seems to be as obscure as their application is ubiquitous.
Events
Authors: Lombard Lawrence Brian
Published: June 2016

In this paper, I want eventually to get around to proposing a criterion of identity for events which are changes in physical objects, where events are construed as comprising a distinct metaphysical category of thing. The proposal will be preceded by a discussion of what I take to be a mistaken suggestion for such a criterion; I will do that because I think that seeing what it takes to show why that suggestion fails helps to motivate a theory about what it is to be an event; and that theory wi II supply the conceptual foundations for my proposal concerning the criterion of identity for events. Before that suggestion is discussed, however, I want to discuss briefly an aspect of the question, Why do we have to give a criterion of identity for events, or for objects of any sort whatsoever? I want to have a brief look at the connection between identity criteria and the idea of a kind of object.
Sense and Nonsense
Authors: Swoyer Chris
Published: June 2016

“What kind of psychological theory could relate our use of words to sets of possible worlds?” So queries a recent author, but the question is rhetorical, the insinuation being that any analysis or explanation of semantical notions in terms of possible worlds will involve an account that won't square with a naturalistic view of language acquisition or use. Such feelings are widespread; my purpose here is to argue that they are unjustified.
Utilitarianism and the Individual
Authors: Monro D. H.
Published: June 2016

Can utilitarianism be reconciled with individualism? The short answer might be that Mill tried to reconcile them, and failed: the quite uncompromising individualism of On Liberty is commonly thought to be inconsistent with his utilitarianism. This is in part because of his rejection of paternalism, which seems to imply that spontaneity and freedom are more valuable than happiness. Mill himself argued that they are, at least in the long run and for the community as a whole, the surest means to happiness. But, while this is defensible, it is hard to see how it could be conclusively demonstrated; and it seems clear that Mill's belief that it is so is the result rather than the cause of his attachment to freedom. Moreover, Mill is, as Fitzjames Stephen pointed out, committed to the assertion that the suppression of opinion always, whatever the circumstances, has worse consequences than not suppressing it; and this seems much too sweeping a principle not to have some exceptions.
The Iterated-Utilitarianism of J.S. Mill
Authors: Copp David
Published: June 2016

The interpretation of the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill has been a matter of controversy at least since J.O. Urmson published his well known paper over twenty-five years ago. Urmson attributed to Mill a form of “rule-utilitarianism”, contrasting his reading with the “received view” on which Mill held a form of “act-utilitarianism”. Since then, the interpretive problem has typically been seen to be that of determining which of these two types of theory should be attributed to Mill, or, at least of determining whether Mill was a “rule-utilitarian”. However, as the distinction is typically made, it is possible to have a utilitarian theory which is neither an act- nor a rule-utilitarian theory (nor a form of “utilitarian generalization“). 1n particular, as I will attemptto show, Mill's theory is of neither type but is an example of a sophisticated type of utilitarianism which we might call “iterated-utilitarianism”, for reasons which will become clear in what follows.
Rights and Utilitarianism
Authors: Narveson Jan
Published: June 2016

Few questions about utilitarianism have been more vexed than that of its relation to rights (and its associated notion, Justice). It is commonplace to hold that there are nonutilitarian rights, rights not founded on considerations of utility. And it is even thought that the very notion of rights is inherently incapable of being significantly employed within the utilitarian framework. In the present paper, I wish to consider both of these matters. I propose to give reasons—mostly not really new—for rejecting the stronger, conceptual claim; and on the former, substantial question, I want to argue that the utilitarian at least has a respectable way of handling the vocabulary of rights, even a useful one. Further, I shall argue that what the utilitarian—in particular, J. S. Mill—has to say about rights is quite plausible, though I shall conclude with a question about how illuminating it is.
Mills' Doubts about Freedom under Socialism
Authors: Arneson Richard J.
Published: June 2016

John Stuart Mill is one of the very few philosophical representatives of the liberal political tradition to have given a detailed and sympathetic examination of the socialist critique of private property. While endorsing many of the extreme criticisms of the existing property system that serve as premises in arguments for socialism, Mill is definitely opposed to recommending socialism as an expedient for the present and inclined to be skeptical of the idea that at some future time socialism will be the right form of social organization. Prominent among the various reasons which incline Mill to this skepticism is a concern that socialism poses a threat to individual liberty. That concern I propose to examine in this essay.
Reason, Egoism, and the Prisoners' Dilemma
Authors: Eshelman Larry
Published: June 2016

In this essay I shall try to show that the egoist's inability to avoid the Prisoners’ Dilemma is not a reason for rejecting egoism. In the first section I shall outline the Prisoners’ Dilemma and indicate why the egoist cannot avoid the dilemma. In the next section I shall consider an argument against egoism based upon an appeal to our intuitions as to what is rational. And in the final section I shall consider the argument that egoism is not self-supporting and so is not an adequate conception of rationality.

But first a few words should be said about what is meant by egoism here. The egoist is commonly thought of as someone who acts from selfinterest. This is in keeping with the present use of the term as long as ‘self-interest’ is not understood in a too narrow a fashion. Perhaps a Jess misleading way of characterizing the egoist, though, is as someone who tries to maximize his happiness - i.e., he is an individual utility maximizer.
Facets of Megarian Fatalism: Aristotelian Criticisms and the Stoic Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence
Authors: White Michael J.
Published: June 2016

The Megarians, as well as their Stoic heirs, are known to have been fatalists or logical determinists in the following, very broad sense of these terms: with respect to at least certain classes or kinds of nontautologous propositions, they held that the mere truth of a proposition entails its necessity. This paper explores, in a very tentative fashion, the relation between several versions of logical determinism and two passages in the Aristotelian corpus, one of which is specifically directed against Megarian doctrine and the other of which is an argument purporting to establish a thesis concerning the necessity of future events which Aristotle wished to reject but which the Megarian logician Diodorus Cronus apparently accepted.
Courage and Principle
Authors: Hunt Lester H.
Published: June 2016

The things I wish to say here are relatively few and simple. Reflection on certain moral phenomena suggests, by way of a rather loose dialectical argument, a certain traditional theory of the nature of virtue. This is the notion that virtue consists, partly, of acting on the basis of some principle. If we do not assume in advance some narrow conception of what principles are like, this theory can provide us with a plausible account of the virtue of courage. If we take it seriously and follow its implications where they lead us we can learn something, not only about virtue, but about the nature of principle as well.
The Analysis of Knowledge in the Second Edition of Theory of Knowledge
Authors: Conee Earl B.
Published: June 2016

Roderick Chisholm has offered a new attempt to define knowledge in the second edition of Theory of Knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to present an objection to that definiton.

Here is the proposed definition (numbering below follows the text):

D6.4 h is known by 5 =df h is accepted by S; h is true; and h is nondefectively evident for 5.

To understand D6.4 we need to know what it is for a proposition to be nondefectively evident for a person. That has the following definition:

D6.3 h is nondefectively evident for S=df Either h is sertain for S, or h is evident for S and is entailed by a conjunction of propositions each having for S a basis which is not a basis for any false proposition.

There are four technical expressions in D6.3: “entailed,” “certain” “evident,” and “basis.“
Kantian and Utilitarian Democracy
Authors: Thomas David A. Lloyd
Published: June 2016

It has been claimed that decisions reached democratically have the consent of those subject to them. It will be shown that arguments for this view rest on either a Kantian or a utilitarian conception of consent. When the distinct nature of these arguments is kept clearly in mind, it becomes apparent that little remains of any of them. Nothing remains of the argument based on the Kantian conception, at least in so far as it is used to support the view that democratic government rests on the consent of the governed. Though something remains of the arguments based on the utilitarian conception, what remains is not what they often are thought to establish. The spurious plausibility of consent arguments for democracy is due to switches between the Kantian conception of consent and the utilitarian.
Puccetti and Brain Bisection: An Attempt at Mental Division
Authors: Rigterink Roger J.
Published: June 2016

Science is full of surprises. Fortunately, most of these surprises are small. A scientist, for example, might make an unexpected discoverey, but the discovery simply adds new data in support of an old theory. Or perhaps the discovery will endanger an existing theory, but one which has only local import. In cases like these, the existing theory will be modified, or perhaps even rejected; but the research tradition which surrounds the local theory will remain, by and large, unaffected and will continue on.

Small surprises are welcomed within science; they are part of the daily grist. Science needs them in order to advance in an orderly fashion.
Animal Suffering
Authors: Vandeveer Donald
Published: June 2016

The problem of ascertaining whether there is a justification for the imposition of suffering and premature death on nonhuman animals is important in itself. Examination of the problem also promises to force philosophers to rethink widespread assumptions about what is proper treatment of less than normal human beings, the basis for attributing rights to humans, the value of life, the “intrinsic worth of all human beings,” and certain egalitarian principles. In what follows my primary concern will concern the justification of imposing suffering on animals. In particular I shall try to sort out and examine some arguments set forward by Tom Regan in a recent essay.
Freedom, Rationality, and Paradox
Authors: Barnes Jonathan
Published: June 2016

Any organised society needs some method for determining common policy: public decisions must be forged from private preferences, and particular interests must find a reconciliation in the general good. A society is tolerable only if its decisions are reached by a rational path; for, just as a reasonable man decides his private life on the basis of reasonable procedures, so a reasonable society must formulate its communal behaviour on the basis of reasonable principles. If the Principle of Rationality is violated, society collapses into an anarchic tohubohu, governed by naked power or arbitrary caprice.
Russell's “Proof”, Again
Authors: Carney James D.
Published: June 2016

Often Bertrand Russell defends his view that names differ from descriptions in that names have meaning but descriptions do not by using a “proof.” Recently in this journal it has been debated whether Russell's “proof” fails or not. The familiar objection to Russell's argument is that it is circular or it involves a sense/reference equivocation. Avrum Stroll suggests a novel criticism by making use of a “mirror argument“ which attempts to show that Russell's argument can be used to conclude that "Scott" has no meaning, and that thus the argument proves too much or nothing. Robert Fahrnkopf defends Russell's argument, but, I believe, he does not go far enough in his defense. So it will be useful to carry this debate a few steps further.
Models Of The Person
Authors: Pinkard Terry
Published: June 2016

Over the last several years, C. B. Macpherson has attempted to present a far-reaching critique of the theories underlying and justifying capitalist social systems. Beginning with a critique of the classical theories of capitalism, he has extended it to the later formulations offered by j. S. Mill and T. H. Green, along with the most recent formulation offered by john Rawls. The guiding thread throughout his writing has been the critique of the model of persons which underpin the various formulations of capitalist theory. What I would like to do in this paper is to present what I think to be a stronger defense of Macpherson's argument than Macpherson has himself given, since I think it can be shown that at certain crucial points his argument is necessarily flawed for the point which he is trying to make.
What is Grammar?
Authors: Tomkow Terrance A.
Published: June 2016

While there is agreement that it is the central task of semantics to give the semantic interpretation (the meaning) of every sentence in the language, nowhere in the linguistic literature will one find, so far as I know, a straightforward account of how a theory performs this task, or how to tell when it has been accomplished. The contrast with syntax is striking. The main Job of a modest syntax is to characterizemeaningfulness(or sentencehood). We may have as much confidence in the correctness of such a characterization as we have in the representativeness of our sample and our ability to say when particular expressions are meaningful (sentences). What clear and analogous task and test exist for semantics?
Context and What is Said
Authors: Bertolet Rod
Published: June 2016

As interest in the study of natural languages has increased, philosophers of language and logicians have, along with linguists, begun to pay more attention to sentences whose truth value varies from context to context. Alternatively, to sentences which are such that, if different speakers utter them, those speakers may (or sometimes must) say different things. For example, it is well-known that two different people who utter ‘I am hot’ will be saying different things, that two different people who utter ‘Billy is a lush’ may be saying different things, and that different speakers who utter ‘The book on the table is boring’ may say different things. The same sort of familiar point could be made by examples concerning other pronouns, demonstratives, the utterance of ambiguous sentences, and so on.
Rigid Designators and Disguised Descriptions
Authors: Cook Monte
Published: June 2016

In “Naming and Necessity” Saul Kripke repeatedly uses modal arguments to show that proper names are not abbreviated or disguised descriptions. The arguments take the following form:

(a)

“The F might not have been the F” is false.

(b)

If N were used to mean the F, then “N might not have been the F” would be false (because of (a)).

(c)

But “N might not have been the F” is true.

(d)

Therefore, N is not used to mean the F.
Classical Theories of Reference
Authors: Travis Charles
Published: June 2016

“La théorie, c'est bon, mais ça n'empêche pas d'exister”

J. M. Charcot

Roughly speaking, references (as they concern us here) relate what is said to just those things about which it is said. A theory of reference is commonly taken to be a statement or characterization of that relation which references effect — that relation, that is, which holds between something that is said and some object just in case in that which is said (or perhaps in saying it) reference is made to that object. Such a theory is often further conceived as answering one or both of the questions: (a) For any given object X, what is it for a reference to be made to X (or under what conditions will a reference have been made to X?), and (b) For any given reference, R, what is it for an object X to be the referent of R (or under what conditions will X be the referent of R?). Let us call a theory which correctly answers at least some of these questions a classical theory of reference.
Are Contexts Semantic Determinants?
Authors: Hanson Philip P.
Published: June 2016

By a ‘semantic determinant’ I will mean“…a structural feature of the world necessary for the determination of truth and falsity …,” or briefly, “Semantic determinants are things that determine valuations.” (Thomason (1972), pp. 301, 302),where such determination is functionaland where valuations are themselves functions from sentences into truth values. A familar example is the ‘domain of individuals’ relative to which truth conditions are given for sentences containing “all,” “some,” and related expressions, where these can be construed as ‘quantifiers.’ Thus, e.g., “Some men are albinos” is true just in case at least one individual in the domain which is a man is also an albino. For this truth condition to be making a definite claim we must suppose that the domain is adefinite(though not necessarily finite) set of individualsfixed in advance.
Collingwood's Historical Individualism
Authors: Dray William H.
Published: June 2016

Central to R. G. Collingwood's philosophy of history, and among the most controvrsial of his doctrines, is the contention that historical understanding requires a re-anactment of past experience or a re-thinking of past thought. Some critics have found this contention in it-self incoherent or otherwise unsatisfactory, even as applied to what Collingwood apparently regarded as paradigm cases of historical thinking: for example, accounting for Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in terms of his political ambitions. Others, while accepting the applicability of notions like re-enactment and re-thinking to such cases, have nevertheless rejected them as a basis for a general theory of historical understanding on the ground that their range of application is too narrow to encompass anything like the normal concerns of historians. In particular, these notions have been held to throw little light on what historians have had to say about largescale social events, conditions and processes.
Leibniz' Monads: A Heritage of Gnosticism and a Source of Rational Science
Authors: Butts R. E.
Published: June 2016

A typical view of Leibniz’ extraordinary metaphysical and methodological views is to regard them as having appeared by certain “applications” of his mathematical and physical discoveries. If we believe Couturat and Russell the monadology is largely only the expression of certain logically formal relationships: it is the logic of Leibniz that is basic to his mature metaphysics. Even more typical is the view that Leibniz’ work in mathematics, especially his work on the calculus, is the source of the key ideas in his metaphysics. J. M. Child, the translator of the early mathematical manuscripts, says it straight out: “ … the main ideas of [Leibniz’] philosophy are to be attributed to his mathematical work, and not vice versa.” In a philosophically much more interesting way Paul Schrecker argues that what he calls Leibniz’ “infinitesimal method,” a method obviously derived from his mathematical work, pervades all of the important basic contributions of both his metaphysics and methodology.
Reflective Equilibrium and Archimedean Points
Authors: Daniels Norman
Published: June 2016

In ATheory of Justice,John Rawls defines a hypothetical contract situation and argues rational people will agree on reflection it is fair to contractors. He solves the rational choice problem it poses by deriving two lexically-ordered principles of justice and suggests the derivation justifies the principles. Its soundness aside, just what justificatory force does such a derivation have?

On one view, there is no justificatory force because the contract isriggedspecifically to yield principles which match our pre-contract moral judgments. Rawls provides ammunition for this claim: “By going back and forth, sometimes altering the conditions of the contractual circumstances, at others withdrawing our judgments [about what is just] and conforming them to principle, I assume that eventually we shall find a description of the initial situation that both expresses reasonable conditions and yields principles which match our considered judgments duly pruned and adjusted.”
Another Look at Some of Zeno's Paradoxes
Authors: qFiasco Flash
Published: June 2016

When I was first introduced to Zeno's paradoxes I thought how wonderful it is that the philosophers can prove things that are obviously not the case. The paradoxes of Zeno are particularly engaging for they, unlike such paradoxes as the set theoretic paradoxes of Russell and Löwenheim and Skolem, are straightforward and untechnical arguments about straightforward and untechnical concepts. Unquestionably, the most elegant refutation of any ‘proof’ that there is no motion was that of Diogenes of Sinope who, as Diogenes Laertius relates, simply walked about. Ingenious and incontestable as Diogenes’ response was, it does little to quell our intellectual uneasiness that something is gravely amiss about logic - it should not be possible to prove absurdities. I believe that logic is, for the present anyway, secure: that Zeno's paradoxes are in fact pseudo-paradoxical confusions.
Marxism and Moral Objectivity
Authors: Shaw William H.
Published: June 2016

Historical materialism tenders a sociological theory of morality. According to it, different types of society are characterized by different and distinctive moral codes, values, and norms, and these moral systems change as the societies with which they are linked evolve. Morality is not something immutable and eternal; rather, it is part of ‘the general process of social, political and intellectual life’ - part of the social consicousness - which is conditioned by the general mode of production of material life. It is no accident, but rather a functional requirement, that different forms of moral consciousness accompany different modes of production. Moreover, since all existing societies have been class societies, their moralities have been class moralities in the sense that they sustain and reflect the material relations that constitute the basis of the different forms of class rule.
Marx'sMoral Skepticism
Authors: Panichas George E.
Published: June 2016

Plato taught us to be suspicious of any political theory void of moral underpinnings and, afortiori,of any political theorist offering the appearance of a moral Philistine. The lesson was well learned by political theorists (though by comparably few others) and has contributed to the view that basic political concepts (eg. legitimacy, obligation, and rights) are at root moral concepts. This view, transformed into a methodological imperative, has in turn given rise to the commonplace strategy of criticizing political theorists by claiming either that the institutions or practices which they advocate are not Justifiable given their espoused moral theories or, more radically, that the moral theories to which they subscribe are unacceptable and, because of this, their political conclusions are to be rejected. Should the theorist have no (relatively) obvious and easily compartmentalized moral views whatsoever, he is deemed unworthy of his title - his license to theorize is revoked.