bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
L'inertie du mental
Authors: Bilodeau Renée
Published: April 2010

Le modèle causaliste en théorie de l'action a pour point de départ l'idée que les rationalisations sont des explications causales de l'action, c'est-à-dire que les énoncés à propos des croyances et des pro-attitudes qui ont motivé un agent à accomplir une certaine action expriment les antécédents causaux de cette action. Pour reprendre un des exemples classiques, le meurtre de César par Brutus a été causé par le désir que Brutus avait de prendre le pouvoir et par sa croyance que la seule façon d'y parvenir était d'éliminer César. Bien qu'intuitive, cette position soulève immédiatement un problème du fait que les états intentionnels, en raison de leur contenu propositionnel, ne s'imposent pas d'office comme appartenant au règne des choses physiques et de la causalité. Comment, en effet, des entités d'ordre mental peuvent-elles interagir avec les entités complètement différentes que sont les événements physiques? Et même, plus largement, comment un événement mental peut-il avoir une quelconque efficace causale sur un événement physique ou sur un autre événement mental? Une réponse bien connue à cette difficulté est le monisme anomal de Davidson, selon lequel il n'y a pas d'obstacle à ce que le mental soit en relation causale avec le physique puisque les occurrences d'événements mentaux sont identiques à des occurrences d'événements physiques. Toutefois cette approche, qui, comme bien d'autres, mise sur une stratégie matérialiste pour ne pas isoler le mental du physique, en a conduit plus d'un à douter de l'indispensabilité du mental.
Un moteur peut-il être sémantique?
Authors: Jacob Pierre
Published: April 2010

L'intentionnalité pose aux philosophes qui se réclament du matérialisme ou du physicalisme deux problèmes complémentaires qui sont les deux faces d'une même médaille. Premièrement, peut-on naturaliser l'intentionnalité? Deuxièmement, les propriétés intentionnelles des représentations sont-elles causalement efficaces? Un moteur peut-il être sémantique?
Interpreting Davidson
Authors: Ramberg Bjørn T.
Published: April 2010

To approach the philosophical anthropology (p. 4) of Donald Davidson is to get ready for an unusually high number of laps around the hermeneutic circle. Apparently a problem-oriented philosopher, Davidson presents his views in a continuing series of dense, tightly focussed papers on narrowly circumscribed topics. The lines of the big picture are mostly implicit. Yet it is the scope and the power of this picture that has made Davidson one of the most significant philosophers of this century. Naturally, this makes Davidson's work an extremely tempting—and extremely treacherous—target for the exegete with synthesizing tendencies. Until now, the sense of danger seems to have won out; secondary expositions have largely confined themselves to particular aspects of his thought. For those seeking to appreciate the cohesion and comprehensiveness of Davidson's vision, there has been no alternative but, as Ted Honderich says, to “struggle and learn,” working their way through Davidson's papers, continually calibrating and recalibrating interpretations of Davidson's detailed philosophical proposals with the emerging pattern of their interrelationships.
Some Reasons for Not Taking Parapsychology Very Seriously
Authors: Hacking Ian
Published: April 2010

Stephen Braude, a philosopher, believes that scientists, scholars and intellectuals ignore the wide range of evidence for psychic phenomena. They dismiss what is known and refuse to inquire further. He uses strong words such as “intellectual dishonesty and cowardice.” He means me and probably you. He made these allegations in his second book on parapsychology, The Limits of Influence, which is subtitled Psychokinesis and the Philosophy of Science. It was published in 1986. The editor of Dialogue thought that the charges had not been adequately discussed, and that the appearance of a paperbound edition would be a good occasion to treat them seriously.
Pollock on How to Build a Person
Authors: Marras Ausonio
Published: April 2010

Pollock'sHow to Build a Personis a highly sophisticated defence of the “strong” Artificial Intelligence (AI) program within the framework of a physicalist/functionalist ontology. Its central thesis is as robust as any defender of strong AI could possibly want it to be: to build a person—“a thing that literally thinks, feels, and is conscious” (p. ix)—is to build a physical system that adequately models human rationality; and building such a system is, essentially, a computational task. The epistemological groundwork for the computational task (a task already underway at the University of Arizona under the name “the OSCAR project”) is sketched in the sixth and last chapter of the book—a 64-page-long chapter (“Cognitive Carpentry”) where Pollock presents the main lines of a general theory of rationality which he has been developing over the course of many years. The bulk of the book (chaps. 1 to 4) is devoted to an articulation and defence of what Pollock takes to be the metaphysical underpinnings of his conception of a person as an intelligent machine: token-physicalism, agent materialism, psychophysical supervenience and (a form of) analytical functionalism. This part of the book, which will be the focus of this review, provides an account of “the physical basis for mentality”—an account of what it is that makes a physical structure capable of having mental states relevantly like our own. And since on the proposed account mental capacity “involves a way of codifying information—a system of mental representations” (p. 93), Pollock devotes a chapter (chap. 5) to the semantics of “the language of thought”; though basically a digression, since “semantics plays no role” in the computations involved in rational thought, the chapter is intrinsically very interesting, bearing as it does on current debates on thought ascription and content individuation.
Marx on Freedom and Necessity
Authors: Beehler Rodger
Published: April 2010

In a famous passage in volume three of Capital, Karl Marx distinguishes between a “realm of freedom” and a “realm of necessity”. The passage has attracted attention as seeming to register a dismal perception by Marx of the productive labour that will be necessary even under communism. “Dismal perception” is G. A. Cohen's verdict in his lucid essay “Marx's Dialectic of Labour”. Cohen has now softened the charge to “a somewhat gloomy perception”. But he continues to hold that the passage reveals Marx viewing even post-capitalist labour “as bound always to be unsatisfying”, a marked shift from Marx's optimistic 1840s view that under communism labour would be unalienating. The debate has recently been joined by James Klagge, who has argued against Cohen (and others) that the volume three passage does not disclose a shift in view, and so does not register a “deep pessimism” or “negative appraisal” by Marx of post-capitalist labour.
Gadamer, Objectivity, and the Ontology of Belonging
Authors: Guen Carroll
Published: April 2010

In everyday language, “objectivity” is an important normative term. It signifies that in our demeanour, in our judgments, in our attitudes, there is more at stake than just what we want in and of ourselves as isolated individuals. Whoever is called upon to moderate the presidential debate must be “objective”; that is, he or she must give each participant a fair hearing and fair treatment. It is not appropriate for such a moderator to take sides or to use the position to pay off personal scores. Now we know that this moderator will have his or her own personal political convictions, and that he or she may well dislike one, or both, of the candidates. However, we would all agree that this is not the time or the place to settle old scores. That would show a lack of “objectivity”.
Marxist Critical Theory, Contradictions, and Ecological Succession
Authors: Catton Philip
Published: April 2010

Marx called a social pattern “contradictory” if the conditions of its maintenance are also key ingredients for its demise. The science of ecology, too, studies patterns the conditions for whose maintenance are also key ingredients for their demise. The historical materialist notion of contradiction has a close counterpart in the ecological notion of succession. Succession is a process by which the structure of a biological community—both niche structure and species structure—changes as a result of each species' modification of the habitat. Just by living, each species members alters its environment, and in non-climax communities these effects, summed over all living things, constitute disequilibria. The habitat changes, and with it the niche structure. Gradually the species structure of the community changes. Each seral stage, with its distinctive species structure, requires for its maintenance the ongoing existence of living members of each species in the structure; yet this condition is the key ingredient for succession, for the demise of the seral stage. Succession results, in effect, from contradictions that are present in each seral stage. (For an illustrative example of seral stages and biological succession, see the Appendix.)
Ethics, Feminism, and Human Reproduction
Authors: Yeo Michael
Published: April 2010

This work interlinks three rapidly developing fields: human reproduction, applied ethics, and feminism. The convergence of the three, each of which is interesting and important in its own right, creates a synergistic effect by which each mutually illuminates the others.
L'imagination au pouvoir
Authors: Bodéüs Richard
Published: April 2010

J'emprunte le titre de cette étude au stock des slogans révolutionnaires répétés dans les rues de Paris lors des journées mémorables de mai 1968.

Que signifiait au juste ce slogan pour ceux qui l'employaient à l'époque? Il n'est pas facile de le dire avec précision. On devine néanmoins qu'il exprimait la revendication que fin soit mise à l'usure et à la sclérose supposées du régime en place, par l'invention de nouveaux modes d'action, de gouvernement, de lois, peut-être, et d'institutions inédites.
Perception and Evaluation: Aristotle on the Moral Imagination
Authors: Hankinson R. J.
Published: April 2010

In recent years, Aristotle's treatment of the imagination has become the subject of renewed interest. A pioneering paper by Malcolm Schofield argued that, far from being the rag-bag of widely separate and more or less unrelated concerns that it had previously been generally taken to be, phantasia was, for Aristotle, a ‘loose-knit family concept’ covering all aspects of what Schofield labelled ‘non-paradigmatic sensory experience’. With that conclusion I am more or less in agreement, although only on the condition that ‘sensory’ be given a suitably broad interpretation. My purpose in this paper is to tease out, in a necessarily limited and circumscribed manner, the implications of a proper understanding of Aristotle's developed concept of deliberative imagination, phantasia bouleutikê, for his moral theory and his account of rational action, and to indicate ways in which this is related to his accounts of mental imaging in the rest of the Parva Naturalia.
Character and Explanation in Aristotle's Ethics and Poetics
Authors: Deslauriers Marguerite
Published: April 2010

Aristotle discusses character in four contexts: ethics, poetic theory, the study of rhetoric and zoology. What he means by character is different in each of these cases, but not radically different. He always uses it as a device to explain actions or behavioural patterns: in animals, in people, and in fictional people. The similarities between the character exhibited by different species, moral character, and tragic character have gone unexamined. As a result, the notion of character as explanatory, and the possibilities and limitations of explanation by means of character are still undetermined.
The Symmetry Enigma in Hobbes
Authors: Haji Ishtiyaque
Published: April 2010

Gregory Kavka has recently highlighted, and attempted resolution of, a possible problem with Hobbes's views on state-of-nature co-operation. The problem, having to do with whether it is rational to abide by one's agreements in what appear to be prisoner's dilemma (PD) or PD-like situations, can provisionally be summarized in this way: A covenant of mutual trust is an agreement in which both parties are required to discharge their covenantal obligation, in sequence, at some time after the contract is made (WM,3,14,120–121,124). Hobbes seems to affirm that it is not rational in the state of nature for covenant-parties who have to perform first—first-parties—to keep their agreements, although it is rational for second-parties to do so if first-parties have already performed. These views on the rationality of contract-keeping generate the symmetry enigma: precisely what is the asymmetry between the situations of first-parties and second-parties in the state of nature that makes it irrational for first-parties to do the cooperative thing but rational for second-parties to do so?
The World Essence
Authors: Bigelow John
Published: April 2010

Recently, Brian Ellis came up with a neat and novel idea about laws of nature, which at first I misunderstood. Then I participated, with Brian Ellis and Caroline Lierse, in writing a joint paper, “The World as One of a Kind: Natural Necessity and Laws of Nature” (Ellis, Bigelow and Lierse, forthcoming). In this paper, the Ellis idea was formulated in a different way from that in which I had originally interpreted it. Little weight was placed on possible worlds or individual essences. Much weight rested on natural kinds. I thought Ellis to be suggesting that laws of nature attribute essential properties to one grand individual, The World. In fact, Ellis is hostile towards individual essences for any individuals at all, including The World. He is comfortable only with essential properties of kinds, rather than individuals. The Ellis conjecture was that laws of nature attribute essential properties to the natural kind of which the actual world is one (and presumably the only) member.
Sturgeon's Defence of Moral Realism
Authors: Jobe Evan K.
Published: April 2010

Can a moral principle be tested and confirmed empirically? Can the fact that an event exhibits a moral quality play a role in explaining why a person observes the event as having that quality? Gilbert Harman, in attempting to point to a radical difference between scientific and moral facts, has endorsed a negative answer to these questions. With Harman's discussion in mind, Nicholas Sturgeon takes the affirmative side in his “Moral Explanations,” a potentially influential essay that is now beginning to appear in the textbook anthologies. Sturgeon rounds out his defence of moral realism by further arguing that moral qualities of persons can play an essential role in the scientific explanation of human conduct. Finally, he attempts to enhance the appeal of moral realism by arguing for the plausibility of its compatibility with physicalism. While granting that Sturgeon's discussion is challenging and instructive I shall try to show that on all points mentioned here Sturgeon has failed to make a good case.
The Ideal Libertarian
Authors: Ripstein Arthur
Published: April 2010

In 1959, an article in theHarvard Business Reviewasked “Can Capitalism Win the Intellectuals?” Thirty years later, affirmative answers are prominent. Economic stagnation and downright collapse in the planned economies of Eastern Europe, coupled with the seeming inability of the deficit-ridden welfare states of the West to maintain social services provide at least part of the explanation. But philosophers have been eager to show that this is more than an historical trend.
Reply to Ripstein
Authors: Narveson Jan
Published: April 2010

One reason for professing sympathy for such an unpopular view as libertarianism is that one acquires such worthy opponents. Arthur Ripstein's notice was a pleasure to read and, as I would expect, gives one plenty to think about. In this very brief reply, though, I can only identify some points on which I think he may have misstated my view, or on which I can offer a quick rebuttal.
Sartre and James on the Role of the Body in Emotion
Authors: Baugh Bruce
Published: April 2010

Sartre begins the first chapter of his monograph, Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions with a critique of William James' “peripheric theory” of the emotions. According to Sartre, James claims that emotions are “nothing but the consciousness of physiological manifestations” (p. 33), the reflection in consciousness of changes occuring in the body. Sartre attacks this theory as being unable to account for the meaningful and purposive nature of emotions. Sartre's own view is that emotions are the substitution of a magical or symbolic way of relating to the world for problem-solving behaviour, and occur when problem-solving behaviour is perceived to be “impossible” for one reason or another.
Dire «je»
Authors: Corazza Eros
Published: April 2010

Dans ce texte j'aborderai presque exclusivement la question de savoir si le pronom personnel «je» est un terme référentiel ou non. Il s'agit en définitive de savoir si le pronom en question est une expression qui désigne quelque chose et, si oui, de spécifier la nature du référent en question. En un mot, je me propose ici d'analyser le comportement sémantique du pronom «je».
A Guide for the Disputatious
Authors: Swartz Norman
Published: April 2010

It is obvious that teaching and research in informal logic (critical thinking, rhetoric) is a growth industry, indeed one of burgeoning proportions. Judging by skyrocketing enrolments and the avalanche of books, journals, computer aids, conferences, and workshops during the last decade, it would seem to be no passing fad but the overdue recognition of a societal need.
Ebbs's Participant Perspective on Self-Knowledge
Authors: Hymers Michael
Published: April 2010

Une objection parfois faite à l'anti-individualisme est que son hypothèse d'un rôle constitutif de l'environnement naturel et social dans l'individuation des attitudes intentionnelles invite au scepticisme quant à l'autorité de la première personne, ce privilège particulier que nous sommes tous censés détenir eu égard à la connaissance (non socratique) de soi. Gary Ebbs pense que cette sorte d'objection peut être contrée par l'abandon du réalisme métaphysique et du naturalisme scientifique et par l'adoption de ce qu'il appelle le «point de vue du participant sur nos pratiques linguistiques. En m'appuyant largement sur des considérations wittgeinsteiniennes, je soutiens qu'Ebbs a raison sur ce point, et je montre comment certaines objections à sa thèse peuvent être contrées. Je soutiens aussi que la simple adoption du point de vue du participant ne serf pas à réfuter le scepticisme à l'endroit du monde extérieur.
Collingwood, Metaphysics, and Historicism
Authors: D'oro Giuseppina
Published: April 2010

Cet article discute l'idée que la philosophie tardive de Collingwood soit d'orientation historiciste et relativiste. Je soutiens que cette accusation de relativisme historique est basée sur deux erreurs, l'une exégétique et l'autre philosophique. L'erreur exégétique est le résultat de l'hypothèse d'une prétendue «conversion radicale». L'erreur philosophique repose sur la conception selon laquelle il n'y a pas de différences substantielles entre le projet d'une métaphysique descriptive (qui est celui de Collingwood lui-même) et le projet de la sociologie de la connaissance. L'article essaie de saper à la base l'accusation de relativisme en contestant ces deux préjugés.
Can Feminists Be Cartesians?
Authors: Gertler Brie
Published: April 2010

Cet article défend l'une des thèses centrales du cartésianisme (mais pas Descartes lui-même) contre les objections féministes. Je montre que l'approche «en première personne» adoptée par Descartes au sujet de notre connaissance des esprits est au moins compatible avec les positions féministes clés, etpeut même renforcer certaines des plus centrales parmi elles. L'article porte sur deux doctrines cartésiennes: (1) l'individualisme épistémique et (2) l'introspectivisme. Ma défense exploite le potentiel qu'offre la stratégie méditative de Descartes pour miner certains présupposés politiquement chargés. Plus généralement, il s'agit de montrer que l'approche en première personne qu'adopte le cartésianisme à l'endroit des questions épistémiques et conceptuelles peut constituer, pour le féminisme, un très bon outil anti-autoritarien.
Genetic Intervention and the New Frontiers of Justice
Authors: Farrelly Colin
Published: April 2010

Recent advances in genetic research pose many complex problems for moral and political philosophers. On the one hand, these advances promise great things. Genetic enhancement techniques might allow us to prevent or cure a variety of debilitating diseases. But on the other hand, talk about intervening in people's genetic make-up conjures up memories of the sinister episodes of past eugenic movements. Such movements violated the most basic principles of justice. How can society capitalize on the benefits of genetic intervention and yet avoid the injustices of past eugenic movements? What basic moral principles should guide public policy and individual choice concerning the use of genetic interventions? These important questions are tackled by Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler inFrom Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. This book brings together the thoughts of leading scholars in the field and is likely to set the agenda for serious debate on this topic.
Shoemaker on Second-Order Belief and Self-Deception
Authors: Lee Byeong D.
Published: April 2010

L'autorité de la première personne au sujet de ses propres états mentaux semble entrer en conflit avec l'occurrence de certaines illusions sur soi-même. Sydney Shoemaker avance une suggestion intéressante pour régler ce type de conflit. Selon cette suggestion, on peut expliquer l'autorité de la première personne au sujet de ses propres états mentaux en maintenant que les croyances positives de second ordre sont toujours correctes, tandis qu'on peut expliquer les illusions au sujet de soi-même en termes de croyances négatives de second ordre, qui, elles, ne sont pas toujours correctes. Je soutiens dans cet article qu'il n'y a pas de telle asymétrie entre les croyances positives de second ordre et les croyances négatives de second ordre.
The Contingency of the Possible
Authors: Weigel Christine
Published: April 2010

Les actualistes ne partagent pas tous les mêmes intuitions quant aux mondes possibles. Cet article caractérise les intuitions platoniciennes et aristotéliciennes, et explore les conséquences pour l'actualiste d'accepter le platonisme ou l'aristotélisme. Les arguments en faveur de la conception aristotélicienne tiennent la route, mais pour rérpondre à certains problèmes concernant la vérité des négatives existentielles, l'actualisme aristotélicien doit rejeter l'actualisme des propriétés, c'est-à-dire la conception que seules les entités existantes ont des propriétés. Puisque les entités non existantes ont certaines propriétés, l'actualisme aristotélicien sans actualisme des propriétés est la meilleure approche aux modalités.
Appraisals of Virtue and Value
Authors: Haji Ishtiyaque
Published: April 2010

Thomas Hurka's brilliant study on the nature and value of virtue and vice opens with a puzzle. Hurka tells us that as consequentialism defines “all other moral properties in terms of goodness and evil” (p. 8), a fully consequentialist characterization of virtue and vice should define these things by appeal to goodness and evil as well. However, it has traditionally been thought that the most promising analysis of virtue, in terms of what is intrinsically good or evil, embarks from the fundamental claim that virtue is a disposition to promote good and prevent evil (p. 8). But then this been concluded, the bedrock truth that virtue is intrinsically good cannot be captured successfully by any consequentialist approach.
Estimation (Wahm) in Avicenna: The Logical and Psychological Dimensions
Authors: Black Deborah L.
Published: April 2010

One of the chief innovations in medieval adaptations of Aristotelian psychology was the expansion of Aristotle's notion of imagination orphantasiato include a variety of distinct perceptual powers known collectively as the internal senses (hawâss bâtinah). Amongst medieval philosophers in the Arabic world, Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ, 980–1037) offers one of the most complex and sophisticated accounts of the internal senses. Within his list of internal senses, Avicenna includes a faculty known as “estimation” (wahm), to which various functions are assigned in a wide variety of contexts. Although many philosophers in the Arabic world as well as in the Latin West accepted Avicenna's positing of an estimative faculty, Avicenna's best-known critics, al-Ghazâlî (1058–1111) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126–1198), found Avicenna's arguments in support of a distinct estimative faculty problematic. For different reasons, both Averroes and Ghazâlî raised the basic question of whether one needed to posit a distinct faculty of estimation to supplement the perceptual abilities of the other internal senses, and whether the notion of an estimative power as defined by Avicenna was internally coherent. Such criticisms suggest that the Avicennian conception of estimation is not entirely unambiguous, and that a correct understanding of Avicenna's motivations for delineating an estimative power requires a careful study of the diverse activities assigned to it throughout Avicenna's philosophical writings.
Philosophic sur ordinateur ou intelligence artificielle
Authors: Boss Gilbert , Longeart Maryvonne
Published: April 2010

L'informatique se définissant comme le traitement rationnel de l'information par machine automatique et l'intelligence se caractérisant par une même capacité de traitement rationnel, il était inévitable que l'on songe à associer l'intelligence au traitement automatique de l'information. C'est ce qu'a fait John McCarthy en forgeant le terme d'intelligence artificielle (IA). Par «intelligence artificielle» on peut vouloir exprimer l'ambition de

1. Recréer, transformer ou développer l'intelligence artificiellement

2. Simuler l'intelligence en la reconstituant dans des modéles imitant certains aspects de notre intelligence dite naturelle.
Making the World Safe for Liberalism
Authors: Ripstein Arthur
Published: April 2010

‘Liberal’ is still a term of abuse in US presidential politics and certain academic circles. But gone for now are the days when liberals were saddled with responsibility for (depending on who was making the accusation) crime, promiscuity or crass concern with material wealth. Instead, competing political visions increasingly do battle for the right to carry the liberal banner.
Intentionality and Tense
Authors: Rankin Kenneth
Published: April 2010

Contemporary writing on human action sometimes distinguishes a presentoriented form of intentionality from a future-oriented form. Tense is then invoked mainly for a classificatory purpose, with little regard in this context to whether it may not have analytical (and therefore closer) connections with intentionality in general. That merits some surprise, in view of the crucial role assumed, in current debate between A- and B-theories of time on the subject of tense, by a wider intentionality that extends to cognitive and other mental states. In the wider context there is room for an interesting antithesis between analyses of the temporal in terms of intentionalistic concepts and retroanalyses that go the other way.
Spinoza's Dialectical Method
Authors: Lucash Frank
Published: April 2010

Errol Harris talks about a crypto-dialectic method that lies behind the geometrical disguise of Spinoza'sEthics.Spinoza's method, he argues, is not the linear formal deduction of traditional logic but a crypto-dialectical development of the structural implications of a systematic whole. Substance differentiates itself into infinite attributes and infinite modes. Each attribute is self-differentiated into a hierarchy of modes ranging from the most complex to the simplest. Harris calls this a dialectical scale or a crypto-dialectical development of the structural implications of a systematic whole. The self-specification of the whole into attributes and modes provides the framework for a dialectical system. Spinoza's hypotheses (propositions) are implications dialectically derived from his concept of substance, a concept of a whole which differentiates itself into infinite attributes and modes. Substance is not a hypothesis but is a postulate which s i absolutely certain. Everything follows from substance with dialectical necessity. Substance is the origin of all things and ideas.
Feminist Criticisms of Habermas's Ethics and Politics
Authors: Couture Tony
Published: April 2010

My project is to assess recent objections directed at Jürgen Habermas by Nancy Fraser, Iris Young and Seyla Benhabib. This dispute is significant because it concerns the value of the Enlightenment style, detached criticism promoted by Habermas as compared to new proposals about dissent from a stance connected to social movements. I argue that these feminist criticisms of Habermas's critical theory are compelling and that they require substantial changes in Habermas's thinking.
Common Knowledge and Davis's Argument from Symmetry in the Prisoner's Dilemma
Authors: Reiner Richard
Published: April 2010

Lawrence H. Davis (1977, 1985) has formulated and defended a version of the argument from symmetry for the non-iterated Prisoner's Dilemma that attempts to show that under certain conditions the rationally prescribed course of action in this game is co-operation. The argument runs as follows below. (I have prefixed a ‘D’ to each of Davis's numbers here, and in subsequent references, in order to avoid confusion as I refer to his points.)
Prisoner's Dilemma Popularized: Game Theory and Ethical Progress
Authors: Danielson Peter
Published: April 2010

Is game theory good for us? This may seem an odd question. In the strict sense, game theory—the axiomatic account of interaction between rational agents—is as morally neutral as arithmetic. But the popularization of game theory as a way of thinking about social interaction is far from neutral. Consider the contrast between characterizing bargaining over distribution as a “zero-sum society” and focussing on “win-win” cooperative solutions. These reflections bring us to the book under review, Prisoner's Dilemma, a popular introduction to game theory and its relation to ethics by the respected science writer William Poundstone. The book begins with a moral dilemma and ends by discussing the evolution of co-operation. Poundstone emphasizes—correctly, to my mind—the ethical potential of game theory. He concludes his first chapter with this striking claim: “Today's practitioners of game theory are attempting to forge a kind of ethical progress. Is there any way to promote the common good in a prisoner's dilemma? The attempt to answer this question is one of the great intellectual adventures of our time” (p. 9).
In Defence of Modernity
Authors: Aronovitch Hilliard
Published: April 2010

Is the endeavour to probe the meaning of modernity other than a form of self-obsession, a kind of collective and conceptual narcissism, characteristic of the perhaps peculiarly modern preoccupation with abstract notions and inwardness? And whatever the motivation and origin, is the endeavour likely to issue in something better than doubtful or empty pronouncements, true to the extent that they are platitudes and false or obscure for the rest? Encountering the titleModernism as a Philosophical Problemone can imagine a Rortyean reading: modernism a philosophical problem?—and the commentary: well, if you thinkthat, youdohave a problem, namely, philosophical pretentiousness and an affliction for foundations, for ultimate principles that, if truly ultimate, are unattainable and also unnecessary. In a different voice, a similar cynicism can be heard, the Lyotardean lament at the announcement of yet another unneeded philosophical meta-narrative, a new, idle tale about history, ideas and development, culminating in grand notions confounded by facts.
Recognition and Cultural Membership
Authors: Ripstein Arthur
Published: April 2010

Group rights have long been of special concern to Canadians. Quebec has maintained a distinct language and civil law system, and Canada's Aboriginal Peoples have always had (“enjoyed” is perhaps the wrong word here) different legal rights from those of other Canadians. Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau sought to reduce the significance of these special protections. He argued that they were the product of historical compromise and political wrangling rather than of any principled vision ofjustice. As a result, he opposed any special status for Quebec in favour of nationwide bilingualism, and sought to dismantle the reserve system for the First Nations. He sought to replace both with the idea of universal citizenship.
Annette Baier on Reason and Morals in Hume's Philosophy
Authors: Johnson Clarence Sholé
Published: April 2010

Annette Baier should have entitled her bookA Progress of Reason and Sentimentsinstead ofA Progress of Sentiments, because one of her chief concerns is the role and significance of reason in Hume's philosophy. She says in the Preface that her aim in the book is “to present Hume's work as exhibiting a progress of thought and sentiment, and acquiring ‘new force as it advances‘” (p. viii). Because the issue of reason in Hume's philosophy is central to her concern, Baier initiates a discussion of it in Chapter 1 and relentlessly pursues the discussion throughout the book. I think it is fair to say that Baier wishes to answer the question “How, if at all, does cognitive reason function in Hume's philosophy?” To answer this question she begins by contrasting Hume's method of conducting philosophy with the method of the Cartesian or intellectualist tradition. She shows that solipsism is, to borrow Gilbert Ryle's expression, the “ineluctable destiny” of the kind of philosopher who glorifies the intellect while denigrating the other human capacities, the individual who indulges in abstract speculation over practical matters. According to Baier, this solipsistic predicament i s what Hume's protagonist articulates towards the end of his intellectual adventure in Book I, Part IV of the Treatise in saying: “Where am I or what? From what causes do I derive my existence?…” Here, Baier affirms, is pure (read unsociable) reason trapped in a miasma of self-doubt, perplexities, bewilderment and desolation from which it cannot extricate itself.
Kant's Theory of Musical Sound: An Early Exercise in Cognitive Science
Authors: Butts Robert E.
Published: April 2010

Kant is well known as the philosopher who spent his life hunting fora prioris, philosophically identifiable characteristics of the make-up of human beings. These characteristics are species-universal, and are necessary presuppositions of the possibility of the success of various kinds of cognitive and cultural strategies. Kant bagged some big game. Space, time and the categories area prioriconditions of the possibility of human cognition. God, freedom and immortality area prioriconditions of the possibility of morality. Thesensus communisis thea prioricondition of the possibility of the universalization of judgments of taste. The hard-won trophies are presuppositions of possibilities. Once they were thought to be properties of a universe well ordered by a substantive god. No longer. Now we must look upon them as entrenched contributions of what it is to be human, as preconditions of human potentialities.
Nussbaum on Transcendence in Plato and Aristotle
Authors: Dorter Kenneth
Published: April 2010

Martha Nussbaum's The Fragility of Goodness is an ambitious, imaginative and wide-ranging study (from classical antiquity to contemporary moral theory), one which has understandably received considerable attention. It comprises studies of the five authors that are arguably the greatest interpretive thinkers of classical antiquity whose works have come down to us: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato and Aristotle. Nussbaum's project is to contrast what might be called the rational and pluralistic (the anachronism ‘existential’ would be appropriate) approaches to life and happiness.
Les multiples lectures du Poème de Parménide
Authors: Lafrance Yvon
Published: April 2010

Les Études sur Parménide viennent s'ajouter à cette liste déjà impressionnante d'ouvrages qui, dans la dernière décennie, ont été consacrés au texte et a l'interprétation du Poème de Parménide. Celui-ci contient les études issues du Centre de Recherches sur la Pensée Antique ou Centre L. Robin de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) que dirigeait le professeur P. Aubenque. Les spécialistes de Parménide de la nouvelle génération ne manqueront pas d'instruments de travail pour leur lecture du Poème. Mais ils risquent du même coup de pénétrer dans un véritable labyrinthe d'interprétations d'où ils auront vraisemblablement plus de difficultés à sortir que leurs devanciers. La somme de connaissances accumulées autour des quelques cent soixante vers de ce Poème au niveau des manuscrits, de la langue grecque et de la littérature de l'époque est considerable, la diversité des lectures codicologiques, philologiques et philosophiques qui touché chaque vers du Poème, pour ne pas dire chaque mot, est déroutantc puisque les arguments qui fondent chacune de ces lectures ne manquent pas de vraisemblance.
Fichte's New Wine
Authors: Harris H. S.
Published: April 2010

We all know that there are many different kinds of “thing”; and what we mean, when we say something to that effect, is usually that things behave differently from one another, or react differently in different circumstances. Among the things to which these generalizations apply, we normally count both ourselves and other people. It was natural enough, therefore, for the philosophers to develop a theory of human nature as made up of a variety offacultiesandpowers(or “passions”). For this provides a convenient way of classifying and comparing our behaviours and reactions.
On the Importance of Conversation
Authors: Morris Christopher W.
Published: April 2010

We are a species addicted to conversation. In a remarkable book, Allan Gibbard argues that conversation is “far more than a carrier of information. In talk we work out not only what to believe about things and events and people, but how to live. We work out how to feel about things in our lives, and in the lives of others” (pp. 3–4). In discussion we arrive at the norms that govern our lives. We determine thus what is to count as morally right or permissible, or as rational, or simply what it makes sense to do or feel. The importance of conversation to our normative life is increasingly evident as Gibbard's tale unfolds.
Two Gauthiers?
Authors: MacIntosh Duncan
Published: April 2010

In outline, at least, the major argument of David Gauthier's,Morals By Agreementis quite clear: it is rational to acquire a disposition to moral behaviour with those similarly disposed because having it gives one the highest practically attainable utility in interactions with them. Once one has acquired such a disposition, a disposition which constrains one's individual maximization of the satisfaction of one's preferences (i.e., a Constrained Maximizer or “CM” disposition), it is rational to act morally towards similar agents. He thus takes himself to have constructed from instrumental rationality alone, a justification of voluntary compliance with moral principles. He appears to have shown that it is instrumentally rational for free and uncoerced agents to perform moral actions.
Gauthier's Liberal Individual
Authors: Ripstein Arthur
Published: April 2010

David Gauthier's recent and elegant Morals by Agreement sets itself the task of deriving morality from the non-moral premises of the theory of rational choice. Gauthier uses the device of a social contract to demonstrate the rational basis of a morality emphasizing rights against force and fraud, private property and the keeping of contracts. Gauthier's social contract is supposed to demonstrate the basis of a morality that is both categorical and enforceable. If his argument is successful, it will demonstrate both the demands that morality may rightly make on each of us, and the moral demands that we may rightly hold each other to.
R. G. Collingwood on the Identity of Thoughts
Authors: Saari Heikki
Published: April 2010

R. G. Collingwood's re-enactment doctrine has been widely discussed in recent years by his commentators. However, most philosophers who discuss the re-enactment doctrine touch only briefly on his view of the identity of thoughts. This is surprising because Collingwood claims that the historian's successful re-enactment of the thought behind the historical agent's action involves re-thinking the same thought as the agent and not merely a copy of his thought.
Reply to Hurka and Copp
Authors: Sumner L. W.
Published: April 2010

I am deeply indebted to Tom Hurka and David Copp for the careful attention they have given to some of the central motifs in The Moral Foundation of Rights. By doing their job so well they have simplified mine considerably. Their exposition of my views is a model of fairness and accuracy; I need therefore waste no time disclaiming attributions or complaining about misrepresentation. Furthermore, they have shown admirable resolve in choosing to ignore the book's relatively peripheral concerns, even when these would have made easy targets. By adopting this policy of restraint they have helped to illuminate issues which, it seems to me, run to the very heart of moral/political theory.
L'Héraclite de M. Conche
Authors: Lafrance Yvon
Published: April 2010

La recherche héraclitéenne vient de s'enrichir d'une nouvelle édition, accompagnée d'une traduction et d'un commentaire des Fragments d'Héraclite. M. Conche annonce lui-même son entreprise en ces mots: «La présente édition des Fragments de son oeuvre perdue vise, en conjuguant l'étude philologique et l'analyse philosophique, à restituer, autant que cela est possible, la pensée même d'Héraclite, dans son unité et sa cohérence».
Le rationalisme et l'analyse linguistique
Authors: Auroux Sylvain
Published: April 2010

C'est avec la grammaire générative (cf. Chomsky, 1966) que la discussion sur les rapports entre l'analyse linguistique et le rationalisme est devenue particulièrement abondante, en même temps qu'elle devenait une affaire idéologique concernant un large public. En présentant saCartesian Linguisticscomme un chapitre dans l'histoire du rationalisme, Chomsky a prétendu avec éclat que: (i) il y aurait une tradition rationaliste ayant des idées précises sur le langage, liée aux thèses cartésiennes et à la grammaire générale de Port-Royal; (ii) la grammaire générative reprendrait cette tradition et lui apporterait une confirmation définitive. De manière générale, la validité historique des thèses de Chomsky a été contestée avec succès par les historiens: qu'il s'agisse de l'idée d'une linguistique cartésienne (Salmon, 1969; Aarsleff, 1982), de la prédominance du rationalisme aux dix-septième et dix-huitième siècles (Joly, 1977 et 1985), de l'identité de démarche entre Port-Royal et la grammaire générative (Pariente, 1975, 1985), voire même de la définition du rationalisme classique (Cooper, 1972 et la réponse dans Chomsky et Katz, 1975).
Gruesome Arithmetic: Kripke's Sceptic Replies
Authors: Allen Barry
Published: April 2010

Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language has enlivened recent discussion of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Yet it is quite possible to disengage his interpretive thesis from its supporting argumentation. Doing so leaves one with an intriguing sceptical argument which Kripke first powerfully advances, then tries to halt. But contrary to the impression his argument may leave, Kripke's solution and the position it concedes to the Sceptic are deeply allied. Here I shall demonstrate their common assumption, and on that basis argue that Kripke's solution begs the Sceptic's question. Furthermore, I believe we can live with the Sceptic. The sceptical argument can be turned into a reasonable contribution to a kind of nominalism in the philosophy of meaning and truth.
Vérisimilarité et méthodologie poppérienne
Authors: Lafleur Gérald
Published: April 2010

Le présent article veut (1) montrer que la théorie qualitative de la vérisimilarité exposée par Karl R. Popper dansConjectures and RefutationsetObjective Knowledgeest compatible avec sa méthode des conjectures, corroborations et réfutations; (2) faire voir pourquoi cette théorie apparaît néanmoins trop forte d'un point de vue intuitif; (3) montrer comment le système poppérien permet de contourner la preuve formelle présentée par Pavel Tichy en 1974 à l'encontre de la théorie qualitative de la vérisimilarité; (4) proposer une nouvelle définition de la vérisimilarité qui apparaisse non seulement logiquement fondée, mais plus intuitivement acceptable et davantage liée à la méthodologie poppérienne que la définition originelle.
Autour de John Rawls
Authors: Pestieau Joseph
Published: April 2010

Dans un avant-propos, les éditeurs de ce recueil en expliquent les origines: la plupart des textes ici rassemblés correspondent à des communications à l'un ou l'autre de trois colloques consacrés à Rawls.

François Terré, dans une préface, présente la position de Rawls au public français comme un essai de conciliation entre liberté individuelle, justice sociale et règle de droit. Rawls renoue avec la primauté du juste: il tient compte des droits individuels, mais aussi du point de vue holiste et du système des droits; il résiste à l'unilatéralité de l'individualisme, mais aussi à l'unilatéralité de l'utilitarisme collectif. Terré insiste aussi sur les silences de Rawls, qui ne parle ni de la violence ni de l'irrationnel pourtant si présents dans nos sociétés. Avec cohérence, Rawls refuse de sacrifier les droits de l'individu à l'utilité sociale mais ne dit rien des sacrifiés que sont l'étranger, l'handicapé, le délinquant.
Rousseauisme et jacobinisme: l'idéal de «l'honnête médiocrité»
Authors: Roy Jean
Published: April 2010

On ne peut penser le politique dans sa consistance propre sans dépasser de quelque manière la perspective abstraite de l'individu. Il faut s'élever à la vue d'une totalité qui ordonne en son sein les rapports des individus qui, livrés à leur spontanéité, tendent naturellement à s'approprier le propre d'autrui, à l'assujettir à leurs fins. Mais il y a aussi dans la volonté humaine une profondeur raisonnable qui lui permet de se vouloir dans le tout c'est-à-dire dans le respect de l'égale liberté d'autrui et de vouloir le tout lui-même par-delà la médiation instrumentale qu'il représente par rapport à la simple protection de l'individu. La loi de l'État limite les totalités individuelles, spontanément errantes et violentes, et par là rend possible leur cohabitation dans un monde commun. En effet, la loi qui limite l'usage anarchique de mes forces contraint également autrui et, de ce fait, me protège. Mais, avant Hegel, Rousseau exalte aussi l'intégration différenciée des individus, l'unité substantielle et réfléchie du corps politique. L'égoïsme éclairé de l'individu ne peut suffire à cimenter l'unité politique, il faut faire appel à un mobile éthique plus élevé, l'amour de la patrie qui, seul, peut susciter à la limite le mori pro patria.