bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
General Terms and Logical Subjects
Authors: Durrant Michael
Published: June 2016

Can general terms stand as logical subjects? viz., following Professor Geach's exposition of subject and predicate, can general terms ever occur as an expression which is such that it can be said to stand for something that the sentence S (in which it occurs) is about, S itself being formed by attaching a predicate to that expression? Frege, in ‘On Concept and Object’, contended that no ‘concept’ could stand as the reference of a grammatical subject, in view of the essentially predicative nature of the ‘concept’, and, as for Frege a concept is what is expressed in language by a general term, no general term can stand as a logical subject.
Authority
Authors: Young Gary
Published: June 2016

Philosophers often contrast personal authority to authority vested in offices. Some such distinction is traditional and sometimes useful. But it does not provide us with an exhaustive classification of the types of authority, for there is a third type of authority that I shall argue is more fundamental than these two. Let us start with the types marked out by the usual distinction.

Consider first the sort of authority illustrated by the following sentences:

(1)

Smith is an authority on physics.

(2)

Smith has (some) authority as a physicist.

(3)

Smith's views (utterances) on physics have (some) authority.

(4)

O.K., I believe you—after all, you're the authority on physics!

A person is an authority in virtue of possessing extensive knowledge of a field or subject-matter. There seem to be no limits on what the field or subject-matter can be—for instance, one can be an authority on trivia.
Monotheism's Euthyphro Problem
Authors: Goldstick D.
Published: June 2016

The object here is to develop a moral argument against theism. By “theism” is meant the worship of a (supposed) omnipotent, all righteous God. An attitude of worship, it may be assumed, would not be an attitude of worship if it did not preclude all doubt as to the worthiness of the object of worship. At any rate, it is only this attitude whose castigation as immoral is meant to be argued for here.

There are, of course, as many theisms as there are theistic religions, sects, cults, denominations et cetera. let M be the moral code of one such theism. It is immaterial here whether the moral code M is or is not dogmatically spelled out in the theistic religion in question. The present argument will follow equally well if the believers claim nothing more than an imperfect, incomplete, and uncertain knowledge of M.
Wittgenstein, Universals and Family Resemblances
Authors: Griffin Nicholas
Published: June 2016

Wittgenstein expounds his notion of a family resemblance in two important passages. The first is from The Blue Book:

This craving for generality is the resultant of a number of tendencies connected with particular philosophical confusions. There is—

(a) The tendency to look for something common to entities which we commonly subsume under a general term. We are inclined to think that there must be something common to all games, say, and that this common property is the justification for applying the general term “game” to the various games; whereas the games form a family the members of which have family likenesses ….

(b) There is a tendency rooted in our usual forms of expression, to think that a man who has learnt to understand a general term, say, the term “leaf,” has thereby come to possess a kind of general picture of a leaf, as opposed to pictures of particular leaves …. This again is connected with the idea that the meaning of a word is an image, or a thing correlated with the word.
Campbell's Refutation of Egoism
Authors: Mack Eric
Published: June 2016

In “A Short Refutation of Ethical Egoism,” Richmond Campbell purports to refute “the view that everyone ought (morally) to do what benefits him the most in a given situation.” This is the theory which is “sometimes called impersonal ethical egoism (IEE)” [249). Campbell takes the following proposition as fundamental to his refutation of IEE.

I. If an agent ought to do something in a given situation and another agent ought to do something in the same situation, then it is not logically impossible for them to do these things in that situation [250].

Granted proposition I, Campbell's refutation would require only:

II. There is a situation S where an agent M would benefit most from doing X and another agent N would benefit most from doing what would prevent M from doing X [251].
Essence Without Universals
Authors: Schwyzer Hubert
Published: June 2016

One might want to say that the difference between an apple and the colour red is a greater difference than that between an apple and a pear, between red and blue. In the same vein, one might want to say that the philosopher's question “What, really, is a piece of wax?” has greater generality than the more ordinary question “What distinguishes a piece of wax from a piece of soap?” I think Wittgenstein would say that to talk in this way (and it is the same way in each case) is to make the difference at issue seem too slight, so that we fail to see what the difference really amounts to.

I should like to suggest that the following thesis is pervasive and fundamental in Wittgenstein's later teaching.
The Causal Principle
Authors: Bradley Raymond D.
Published: June 2016

Philosophical theses are sometimes assailed from so many sides that, even if they have not been refuted, it becomes difficult for them to gain a fair hearing. A case in point seems to be the thesis that the sentence ‘Every event has a cause' (commonly known as the Causal Principle) may on occasion be used to assert something which, as a matter of contingent fact, is either true or false. In the interests of logical chivalry, I want to take up its defence.

My aim, it should be noted, is not to defend the truth of the Causal Principle, to claim that our world is one in which every event is causally determined by another event or set of events. So I shall have nothing to say about the arguments of those who—like the quantum physicists, Heisenberg, Bohr, and Born—claim to have shown that the Causal Principle is false; claim, that is, that our world is fundamentally indeterministic. My concern is only to establish the right of determinists and indeterminists alike to take seriously the question whether our world is in fact one in which every event has a cause.
Individuals Without Sortals
Authors: Ayers Michael R.
Published: June 2016

Consideration of the counting and reidentification of particulars leads naturally enough to the orthodox doctrine that, “on pain of indefiniteness,” an identity statement in some way involves or presupposes a general term or “covering concept”: i.e., that the principium individuationis or criterion of identity implied depends upon the kind of thing in question. Thus it is said that an auditor understands the question whether A is the same as B only in so far as he knows, however informally or implicitly, the answer to the supplementary question, “The same what?”
Toward a Credible View of Abortion
Authors: Sumner L. W.
Published: June 2016

As little as a decade ago most moral philosophers still believed that the exercise of their craft did not include defending positions on actual moral problems. More recently they have come to their senses, one happy result being a spate of articles in the last few years on the subject of abortion. These discussions have contributed much toward an understanding of the abortion issue, but for the most part they have not attempted a full analysis of the morality of abortion. Such an analysis is too large a task for a single paper, but a sketch of it will be undertaken here, the details to be filled in elsewhere.
Rorty's Mark of the Mental and His Disappearance Theory
Authors: Sikora R. I.
Published: June 2016

In “Incorrigibility as the Mark of the Mental,” Richard Rorty argues that although there is no characteristic that marks off everything that is mental, the contents of the stream of consciousness (thoughts and sensations) may be considered as that which is paradigmatically mental, and they are distinguished by the fact that sincere first-person reports about them are currently treated as incorrigible. (From now on, “incorrigible” will stand for “treated as incorrigible.“) He adds that “beliefs, desires, moods, emotions, intentions, etc.“ (p. 491) are also taken to be mental because reports about them are almost incorrigible.
More On Incorrigibility
Authors: Rorty Richard
Published: June 2016

Professor Sikora rightly says that the claim that there might turn out to be no mental events turns on finding some mark of the mental “such that certain events could be mental at one time and then cease to be mental at another time.” This sounds paradoxical, but perhaps the paradox can be mitigated as follows. On the view that I want to recommend, “being mental” resembles “being a capital crime.” One might want to say that there never were any such crimes—for there never were any acts which deserved death. Or one might want to say that there used to be such crimes, but that now, thanks to new legislation, there no longer are.
Duty and the Will of God
Authors: Swinburne R. G.
Published: June 2016

For a theist, a man's duty is to conform to the announced will of God. Yet a theist who makes this claim about duty is faced with a traditional dilemma first stated in Plato's Euthyphro—are actions which are obligatory, obligatory because God makes them so (e.g. by commanding men to do them), or does God urge us to do them because they are obligatory anyway? To take the first horn of this dilemma is to claim that God can of his free choice make any action obligatory or non-obligatory (or make it obligatory not to do some action). The critic claims that the theist cannot take this horn, for God cannot make bad actions good.
The Right and Duty to Will to Believe
Authors: Kauber Peter , Hare Peter H.
Published: June 2016

Rights and duties to will to believe have too long been considered an embarrassing indulgence by philosophers who pride themselves on their methodological rigor. A fresh look at William James's work will show how a more robust, though no less analytically rigorous, ethics of belief is possible.

The history of James's ethics of belief is a stormy one, filled with mainly hostile criticisms on the part of others, with seminal suggestions, gropings, and retractions on the part of James himself. At various points in the development of this ethics of belief, one encounters such expressions as “duty to believe,” “will to believe,” and “right to believe,” the last gaining prominence (and the others dropping out of sight) as James grew older.
Hartshorne's Presupposition
Authors: Lenhardt Wayne A.
Published: June 2016

We wish to examine Hartshorne's ontological argument, as formulated in his discussion entitled “The Irreducibly Modal Structure of the Argument.“ The argument is as follows.

We wish to show that, if the above argument is to work, “q” (A perfect being exists“) must be analytic. If it is analytic, Hartshorne is saddled with a contradiction. Furthermore, if “q” is analytic, the argument is irrelevant. (One could take Baier's position on analyticity and argue that “q” is analytic, but tells us nothing about what, in fact, exists, but now the “proof” would not prove that a perfect being exists.)
Comments on Professor Schouls' Paper
Authors: Yolton J. W.
Published: June 2016

There are many echoes of Descartes and of other Cartesians (especially Arnauld) in Locke's Essay. There is one particularly curious passage in the Essay which is clearly taken from the Regulae. This passage may be the one clear instance of the method of analysis and synthesis in Locke. Before I cite that passage, I want to raise a few questions about some of the claims in Professor Schouls’ paper.

(1) Professor Schouls is right to call attention to the need for some careful analysis of the concept of experience in Locke. He concentrates upon the form experience takes initially (p. 583): lf“he means temporally first, as with infants (p. 595 speaks of “our initial sentient state“), the examples he cites do not fit this concept. The quotes he gives on p. 583 all refer to adult, sophisticated experience, not to the learning experience of children (Cf. p. 586). There is a rudimentary genetic psychology in Locke's Essay and in his Education. He does list some brief order in the acquisition of ideas by children, in the very earliest stages of experience, e.g., with the foetus, “some faint ideas of hunger, and thirst, and warmth, and some pains” are acquired (1.4.2).
Parmenides on Ascertainment of the Real
Authors: Robinson T. M.
Published: June 2016

In this paper I want to suggest that, while the argued philosophical distinction between logic, epistemolgoy and ontology is one of the many achievements of Aristotle, his predecessor Parmenides was in fact already operating with a theory of knowledge and an elementary propositional logic that are of abiding philosophical interest. As part of the thesis I shall be obliged to reject a number of interpretations of particular passages in his poem, including one or two currently fashionable ones. Since so much turns on points of translation, I note for purposes of comparison what seem to be significant alternatives to my own in any particular instance. The line numbers are those of the DK text.
Interaction Problems for Utility Maximizers
Authors: Sobel J. Howard
Published: June 2016

This essay is arranged in three sections. In the first I consider interaction problems that can frustrate maximizers. My object here is to add to the kind of case discussed by Gauthier, another in which maximizers would not do well. In the next section I set out conditions under which ‘straight’ or ordinary maximizers could avoid their problems as surely and as easily as could Gauthier's ‘constrained’ maximizers. And in the last section I comment on the relative merits of straight and ‘constrained’ maximization. Attention here is paid first to the suggestion that straight maximizers in view of their problems would choose not to be straight maximizers, would indeed choose to be ‘constrained’ maximizers, and that this shows that there is something wrong with straight maximization. Rejecting this inference, I turn in conclusion to the idea that it follows from the ‘incompleteness’ of straight maximization, from the fact that it is not always possible, that there is something wrong with it. This inference too is rejected.
Paradigmatic Immorality
Authors: Leiber Justin
Published: June 2016

The notion of moral philosophy that has been dominant in Anglo-American philosophizing since G.E. Moore is peculiar. Reviewing traditional works such as Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Hume's Treatise, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and Mill's Utilitarianism, one is tempted to call this new notion of moral philosophy a different subject; and if one does this, it is less peculiar. However, let us accept that this new sort of moral philosophy does belong to the previous tradition; granted this, I shall explain why I think it peculiar through considering the status of the judgement that Hitler was a bad man.

Consider the sentential function ‘x is (was) a bad man’. ‘Hitler’ seems an obviously suitable substitution for ‘x, at least in the most important sense. That is, one wants to say that if it is not proper or true to say that ‘Hitler was a bad man’ or ‘Hitler was bad’, it fs never proper or true to issue a sentence of this form, restricting x to human beings. Hitler seems indeed, in this most important sense, to be a paradigm case. One wants to say: if Hitler was not a bad man, who could be?
Causation, Transparency, and Emphasis
Authors: Achinstein Peter
Published: June 2016

It is often said that singular causal statements express a relationship between one event and another or between a fact and an event. This is a very strong view, which has the following simple corollary: singular causal statements whose cause-term purports to refer to an event (or a fact) and whose effect-term purports to refer to an event express a relationship between an event (or a fact) and an event.

Thus, both Davidson and Kim would claim that the singular causal Statement

(1) Socrates’ drinking hemlock at dusk caused his death expresses a relationship between two events, referred to, respectively, by the expressions “Socrates’ drinking hemlock at dusk” and “his death.” For Kim, but not for Davidson, an event is analyzable as a thing's having a property at or during a time. The event of Socrates’ drinking hemlock at dusk consists of Socrates’ at a certain time having the property of drinking hemlock at dusk. I shall not here try to choose between their respective theories of events but will only note that both theorists would say that (1) expresses a relationship between events however the latter are to be construed.
The Representative Theory Of Perception
Authors: Maund J. B.
Published: June 2016

In this paper I wish to propose and defend a form of the Representative Theory of Perception (RTP). According to this version of the theory, when a subject perceives some object x to be in a state P1 he does so by being aware of some modfication M1 (from a range M1,M2, … Mn) of some object E. The subject's way of perceiving any one of a range of objects x,y,z, … is that of being aware of some modification of E (leaving it open whether E is the subject himself, a person, an ego or a sense-field, e.g., a visual field). It will be a necessary condition of someone's perceiving x to have property P1 that E be modified in some way. And in order for the modifications of E to be representations, a given property P1 will need to be causally related, characteristically, to one or more specific modifications, M1,M2, … Mn, of E. (For simplicity, instead of taking the physical states or modifications P1,P2, … Pn to be states of individual physical objects, I shall assume them to be modifications of the physical world (in toto) symbolized by ‘X'.)
On The Possibility Of Possible Worlds
Authors: Vendler Zeno
Published: June 2016

The notion of possible worlds — once an abstruse offspring of Leibnizian theology — seems to enjoy a new lease on life in the hands of contemporary modal logicians and semanticists. The phrase “possible world” crops up with increasing frequency, and, as it is the case with many philosophical catchwords, its very familarity creates a presumption of understanding. Yet, although some related problems, particularly the one concerning cross-world identification of individuals, have received some critical scrutiny, the very idea of possible worlds has been borrowed from Leibniz, and its intelligibility taken for granted even without its theological roots.

My misgivings about this notion are not due to a prejudice against the concept of the possible itself: far from “passing” away, it remains a fundamental and irreplaceable element of human thought.
The Philosophical Problem Of Truth-Of
Authors: Cummins Robert
Published: June 2016

There is a certain view abroad in the land concerning the philosophical problems raised by Tarskian semantics. This view has it that a Tarskian theory of truth in a language accomplishes nothing of interest beyond the definition of truth in terms of satisfaction, and, further, that what is missing — the only thing that would yield a solution to the philosophical problem of truth when added to Tarskian semantics — is a reduction of satisfaction to a non-semantic (and ultimately physical) relation. It seems to me that this view either misidentifies the philosophical problem altogether, or encourages a seriously misleading picture of the nature of the problem.

The view I have in mind is nowhere more persuasively at work than in a recent paper by Hartry Field.1 In this paper Field argues that a Tarskian theory of truth for a natural language is impossible if we insist on Tarski's case-by-case elimination of ‘satisfies'. More fundamentally, however, he argues that a Tarskian theory could provide nothing of philosophical interest beyond the admittedly interesting reduction of truth to satisfaction, and his ground for this claim is, roughly, that a Tarskian theory does not reduce its primitive semantic relation — satisfaction — to a non-semantic relation.
Two Kinds of Moral Reasoning: Ethical Egoism as A Moral Theory
Authors: Kalin Jesse
Published: June 2016

Ethical egoism, when summarized into a single ethical principle, is 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. The criticisms standardly advanced against this view try to show either that it is subject to some fatal logical flaw or else that, even if logically coherent, it can give no account of the basic parts of morality. Both these objections are mistaken, however, and it is the point of this paper to make this clear. Central to my argument is the distinction drawn in Section 1 between two kinds of moral reasoning and hence two kinds of moral reasons. I call these ‘traditional’ and ‘nontraditional’ (the latter could be termed ‘conventional’ or ‘institutional’ without much change of meaning). Both are present in the writings of contemporary moral philosophers but have not been emphasized or seen as crucial.
Marx and Utilitarianism
Authors: Brenkert George G.
Published: June 2016

The relation of Marx's writings to ethical theory has been viewed in a variety of different ways. Some deny that Marx has or can have any ethical theory at all. Others claim, on the contrary, that underlying Marx's pronouncements lies an implicit ethical theory which we may discern. Amongst this latter group a debate has quietly been taking place of late as to the nature of the ethical theory to which Marx might be said to subscribe. Some, e.g. E. Kamenka, have maintained that Marx's ethics is non-utilitarian. Others such as A. Schaff, and most recently D. Allen, have argued that in fact, Marx is a utilitarian, though of course Marx did not proclaim himself to be a utilitarian.
The Logic of Virtue in the Republic
Authors: Kubara Michael
Published: June 2016

The overriding concern of theRepublicis the relation between morally (or socially or politically) right (or just) action and happiness (or prudence). To settle the matter Plato says he must first discover the formula for politically just action for individuals, and that it will be easier to do this if we first take justice to be a virtue of a city as a whole. He develops a model of an ideal city, hardly mentioning justice and the other cardinal virtues, and then looks to that model to individuate them.

Here I shall first discuss the defense of his portrait of an ideal city. Second, the logic of virtue(arete)is considered, in two steps. It is argued that judgments of virtue are to be split into those of function(ergon)and power(dynamis).Then there is a brief consideration of each half. Third, the implications of this for understanding and threefold classification of goods are drawn. Finally, there is a discussion of the formula for each of the cardinal virtues of a city.
The Expedient, the Right and the Just in Mill's Utilitarianism
Authors: Harrison Jonathan
Published: June 2016

John Stuart Mill is generally considered to be a utilitarian; indeed, he himself supposed that he was one. On one principle of division, there are sometimes said to be two kinds of utilitarian, hedonistic utilitarians and agathistic utilitarians. Both of these agree that what makes an act right is whether or not the consequences of performing it are good, or are supposed by the agent to be good, but the hedonistic utilitarian thinks that only pleasure is good, whereas the agathistic utilitarian thinks that other things ate good as well. Commentators frequently complain that john Stuart Mill regarded himself as a hedonistic utilitarian, whereas in fact he was an agathistic one.

On another principle of division, there are also two kinds of utilitarian, act utilitarians and rule utilitarians. An act utilitarian thinks that the rightness of an action depends upon the goodness of its consequences; a rule utilitarian thinks that the rightness of an act depends upon the consequence of the rule to which it conforms or fails to conform.
Can Desires Be Causes of Actions?
Authors: Browne D. A.
Published: June 2016

In this paper I shall put forward a version of the so-called logical connection argument to try to show that desires cannot be causes of actions. Now for anyone who wishes to use that kind of argument to show this, the ideal way of proceeding would be to first set out a complete analysis of the causal relation, and then to go on to argue that the relation between desires, certain other conditions, and actions fails to match some essential feature revealed by that analysis. But I cannot proceed in this way; for I do not possess any full-blooded analysis of the causal relation. Nonetheless, I do not think that this places me in a position of real weakness. For the argument I shall present requires the truth of only one claim with respect to the nature of the causal relation. This is the claim that the causal relation is a contingent relation. I think that this claim is a relatively uncontroversial one; I am going to assume that it is true; and the argument which follows will exploit that claim.
Physicalism and the Evolution of Consciousness
Authors: Puccetti Roland
Published: June 2016

The proper study of Mankind is animal evolution. If one looks back on the evolutionary time-scale one finds all kinds of animals surviving in our midst which have very simple nervous systems and whose behaviour amounts to little more than a stereotyped running off of genetically stored behavioural routines. On the other end of this scale, and including man, are animals with large nerve ganglia, or brains, who are far less dependent upon what is already in the genotype, far more capable of selective attention to incoming stimuli and able to lay down new neural connections in accordance with their experience: in a word, largely self-adaptive creatures. Such animals—the more highly evolved birds and all mammals—give much the same kind of evidence of being conscious as one's fellow men do. One is naturally tempted to suppose that consciousness, correlated as it seems to be with possession of a complex nervous system and self-adaptive behaviour, has some selective advantage for evolution of higher animals: if it does not, then how is it we are conscious?
Wisdom’s Philosophy of Religion: Part II: Metaphysical and Religious Transcendence
Authors: Dilman Ilham
Published: June 2016

Professor John Wisdom holds that the reference to be found in many religious beliefs to what lies beyond the world and transcends the senses is misleading. Religious beliefs speak and, indeed, can only speak about this world, the world we know by means of the senses. The religious believer is himself misled when he describes the God he believes in as transcendent. What gives content to his beliefs is how certain things stand in this world. To appreciate these and so to embrace the beliefs in question is for a person to change in himself, to come into contact with something that lies within him. Here lies the spiritual aspect of the content of religious beliefs.
La défense de l'immuable dans son rapport avec le changeant: Beattie et Frayssinous
Authors: Lacoste Louise Marcil
Published: June 2016

Comme chacun sait, nous vivons à une époque où le changement est une donnée fondamentale de I’ action et aussi de Ia pensée. De ce point de vue, il est bizarre de penser que des hommes, disons des philosophes, aient non seulement posé l'immutabilité comme critère constitutif de Ia vérité mais en outre qu'ils aient défendu ce critère selon les règles de l'éloquence, avec un succès public notoire. En effet, dire d'un concept qu'il se définit au sein d'une rhétorique c'est dire, entre autres choses, qu'il présente, aux yeux du locuteur qui le propose avec succès, une valeur et une importance qui peuvent être montrées. Encore une fois, dans un monde où le changement est devenu banal, Ia défense efficace de l'immutabilité est non seulement un anachronisme: elle est bizarre.
Berkeley's Deletions
Authors: Beal M.W.
Published: June 2016

Recently, Jonathan Bennett has said some interesting, but mistaken, things about certain themes in Berkeley's philosophy. His comments are interesting because they direct us to a careful scrutiny of Berkeley's arguments and methodology in the often neglected Draft to the Introduction to the Principles, and mistaken because Bennett misinterprets these arguments and methodology. I would like to correct those mistakes because an understanding of Berkeley's Draft is helpful in interpreting the Introduction, which in turn is important for our understanding of not only his philosophical methodology, but also for an adequate interpretation of some of his substantive philosophical claims. I will argue that Bennett misinterprets Berkeley's deleted comments and arguments concerned with two Lockean themes, classification and understanding, as presented in several passages from the Draft which did not appear in the published Introduction to the Principles. In both cases Bennett's confusion is a failure to grasp Berkeley's strategy and target in his attacks upon Locke and the theses he takes Locke to hold. Read in their unedited form the deleted passages not only indicate that Bennett misinterprets them, but they also are suggestive of some interesting philosophical comments on Berkeley's part.
Emotions and Motives
Authors: Lyons William
Published: June 2016

In this article I want to investigate what sort of explanation is being given when someone says “He did x out of such and such emotion” or “Such and such emotion was his motive tor doing x”. In order to do this I will try and argue for the following:

(1)

The term ‘motive’ should not be limited to contexts where we expect that the motivation does not fall within the standard range.

(2)

The motive which is said to be behind an actual action is to be construed as a cause.

(3)

The motive which is said to be behind an actual action is to be construed as entailing a want which is a cause.

(4)

However not all actions which can be said to be done out of some motive can be said to be actions which the agent wanted to do.
Mannison's Impossible Dream
Authors: Preuss Peter
Published: June 2016

Alastair Hannay wrote that there is a campaign against the mental image and a look at the philosophical literature on that topic bears him out. But there is also a campaign against dreams. Given the first campaign this is not surprising. What is surprising is that they are separate campaigns. Intuitively mental images and dreams seem to be as alike as kittens and cats, the one being merely the developed form of the other, made possible by the fading of consciousness of the real world. One would think that an attack on the one is also an attack on the other, at least in the sense that an analysis of the one will, with modest modifications, also be an analysis of the other.

But this seems not to be so. To say that a man who pictured his nursery was not a spectator of a resemblance of his nursery, but rather resembled a. spectator of his nursery, may have some initial plausibility because some people behave in curious ways at such times. But to say this of a person who dreamt of his nursery is simply nonsense.
Stroll on Russell's “Proof”
Authors: Fahrnkopf Robert
Published: June 2016

Avrum Stroll, in his article “Russell's ‘Proof’ “ (this Journal, IV.4, June 1975) makes a number of interesting ——though, as I shall argue, misconceived ——observations about Russell's philosophy of language. The points on which I take issue with Stroll concern, first, his claim that the arguments used in Principia Mathematica (hereafter abbreviated to PM) to distinguish names from descriptions differ significantly from the arguments to the same purpose in My Philosophical Development (MPD); second, his challenge to Russell's view that descriptive phrases acquire meaning by being put into a sentential context; third, his contention that Russell's various attempts to prove that names differ from descriptions are based on fallacious arguments; and fourth, his speculations about the factors prompting Russell to make the assumption that proper names have meaning and that this meaning is independent of any sentential context. I will discuss each of these points in turn.
Plantinga on Existing Necessarily1
Authors: Carter W. R.
Published: June 2016

In The Nature of Necessity (Oxford, 1974), Alvin Plantinga asserts (1) that “the number 7 exists necessarily and Socrates does not.” (p. 212) This is, to my way of thinking, reasonable enough. Unhappily, (1) cannot be reconciled with Plantinga's further claims that (2) an object x has a property P essentially or necessarily (on page 14 Plantinga tells us that he employs these expressions “as synonyms”) if and only if x has P in every world in which x exists and (3) existence is itself, although not “an ordinary property,” nevertheless a property.
Spinoza's Ontological Argument
Authors: Jarrett Charles E.
Published: June 2016

In this paper I will suggest an interpretation of Spinoza's ontological argument on which (i) the argument, properly construed, is valid, and (ii) Spinoza, if granted the claim that it is possible that God exists, is successful in obtaining the conclusion of the argument. The interpretations given by H.A. Wolfson, G.H.R. Parkinson, and William A. Earle will then be argued to be deficient on textual and logical grounds. Leibniz’ assessment of the argument, namely that it “permits us only to conclude that God's existence follows if his possibility is already proven,” is thus held to be correct.
Coherence and Causal Inference in Hume's Treatise
Authors: Gomberg Paul
Published: June 2016

Discussing the influence of the coherence of our perceptions on our belief in the continued existence of objects when unperceived (in Part IV of Book I of the Treatise), Hume says:

…tho’ this conclusion [that objects continue to exist unperceived] from the coherence of appearances may seem to be of the same nature with our reasonings concerning causes and effects … they are at the bottom considerably different from each other …. Since nothing is ever really present to the mind, besides its own perceptions, ‘tis not only impossible, that any habit shou'd ever be acquir'd otherwise than by the regular succession of these perceptions, but also that any habit shou'd ever exceed that degree of regularity. Any degree, therefore, of regularity in our perceptions, can never be a foundation for us to infer a greater degree of regularity in some objects, which are not perceiv’ d; since this supposes a contradiction, viz. a habit acquir'd by what was never present to the mind. But ‘tis evident, that whenever we infer the continu'd existence of the objects of sense from their coherence, and the frequency of their union, ‘tis in order to bestow on the objects a greater regularity than what is observ'd in our mere perceptions .... as all [causal] reasoning concerning matter of fact arises only from custom, and custom can only be the effect of repeated perceptions, the extending of custom and reasoning beyond the perceptions can never be the direct and natural effect of the constant repetition and connexion, but must arise from the co-operation of some other principles. (pp. 197–8)
Criteria of Personal Identity
Authors: Ameriks Karl
Published: June 2016

The primary objective of this paper is to improve the defense of the thesis that

(1) bodily continuity is the primary criterion of personal identity.

This is to be done by establishing (in Parts Ill and IV) that there is a unique sense in which

(2) bodily continuity is a necessary condition of personal identity.

A secondary objective of the paper is to illustrate (in Part I) the way in which the value and validity of (2) has been obscured in recent defenses and criticisms of (1), which inappropriately interpret it in terms of the claim that

(3) bodily continuity is a sufficient condition of personal identity.

Since the truth of (3) will be denied, the defense of (1) will also involve arguing (in Part II) that the traditional alternative to the bodily criterion, namely the criterion of memory and psychological characteristics, not only is not a necessary condition of personal identity but also is not a sufficient condition.
Davidson on the Identity Theory
Authors: Katz Bernard D.
Published: June 2016

Donald Davidson has advanced a novel argument for the psychophysical identity theory, the view that mental events are identical with physical events. Davidson contends that the truth of this theory can be inferred from three principles: (1) at least some mental events interact causally with physical events; (2) events related as cause and effect fall under strict deterministic laws; and (3) there can be no strict deterministic laws on the basis of which mental events can be predicted or explained (pp. 80–81).

Davidson's contention is striking, quite aside from the question of whether (1), (2), and (3) are correct. For it is commonly assumed that discoveries in the empirical sciences—in particular, the discovery of psycho-physical laws—would be prerequisite for establishing a version of the identity theory. Davidson's argument is successful only if there can be no such discoveries: the third principle precludes the possibility of there being (strict) laws linking the mental and physical.
Referential/Attributive
Authors: Beebe Michael
Published: June 2016

Donnellan has introduced a distinction between two uses of referring terms, the referential and the attributive. A referentially used term is said to pick out that object the speaker has in mind, the one he meant or intended to refer to, while a term used attributively is said to pick out whichever object it names or denotes. While it is generally agreed that Donnellan has discovered a real difference in the way referring terms work, it has by no means been dear how the distinction could or should be handled theoretically. That has two consequences. First, intuitions diverge over difficult or marginal cases and, with no theory to appeal to, the taxonomic part of the enterprise is threatened. Second, the referential/attributive distinction has not become an accepted, relatively uncontroversial tool for solving problems about the semantics of utterances; and this is a least partly because of a lack of theory. But the distinction, so one feels, really is more important than it has thus far shown itself to be.
Justifying Paternalism
Authors: Carter Rosemary
Published: June 2016

1. Introduction

A paternalistic act is one in which the protection or promotion of a subject's welfare is the primary reason for attempted or successful coercive interference with an action or state of that person. My aim in this paper is to determine the conditions under which such acts are Justified. The route I take is through the concept of consent, with actual consent providing the foundation for a rather complex condition which I claim is necessary and sufficient for the Justification of paternalism.

Because a paternalistic act apparently violates a subject's right to non-interference, it constitutes a problem in the general area of rights. Ideally, then, one should have a developed and convincing theory of rights — that is, a theory which contains an analysis of the concept of a right, and offers solutions to the central problems, e.g. who has rights and why, what considerations overrideprima facierights, and how the relative importance ofprima facierights is determined — from which the solutions to various problems about paternalism can be derived.
Speaking Lions
Authors: Rosenberg Jay F.
Published: June 2016

“If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.”

Well, why not, for heaven's sake? A speech impediment, perhaps. Imagine a cross between a severe lisp and a roar. That would be difficult to understand. But not impossible. The claim is that we could not understand him. Very well, who are we?

Perhaps we are the English speakers. Of course what we could understand would depend upon which language the lion spoke. I couldn't understand him, for example, if he spoke in Basque or Hittite or Old Icelandic. If he spoke in Spanish or German, I might be able to puzzle out a few words. But I don't understand anyone who speaks in Basque or Hittite or Old Icelandic. I have friends who do, however.

Of course, he might speak in Lion, in the language of the lions. That would indeed be difficult to understand. I don't even have any friends who speak in lion. So perhaps then we could not understand him. (Perhaps then lions do speak—in the language of the lions. Would that be worth looking into?) So we should need to learn the language of the lions.
Animal Rights
Authors: Narveson Jan
Published: June 2016

What do we owe to the lower animals, if anything? The issues raised by this question are among the most fascinating and fundamental in ethical theory. They provide a real watershed for the moral philosopher and, on perhaps the most widely professed view, a trenchant test of consistency in ethical practice. Among the virtues of these two challenging books is that they make painfully clear that there has been a paucity of clear and plausible argument in support of the nearly universal tendency of humans to eat animal flesh, and to visit varying degrees of pain, discomfort, and unfreedom on the animals in question in the process.

When we are asked why it is all right to do this, given our strong belief that it is not all right for us to eat other humans, we tend to give answers that won't readily wash. We may say, for example, that animals are stupid; but we don't think it all right to eat stupid people, including people less apparently competent than many of the higher animals. Or we may say things that are patently untrue, such as that the other animals don't really feel pain anyway.
Narveson on Egoism And the Rights of Animals
Authors: Regan Tom
Published: June 2016

Jan Narveson has rendered a valuable service with his examination of two recent publications on the general topic of the treatment of animals. Not only has he given us the means for securing a better understanding of many of the most important arguments common to these two volumes; what is more, he has advanced a position which fails to receive any attention in either, and a position which, should it happen to be correct, would fatally undermine perhaps the most basic thesis advanced by those who argue for the rights of animals-the thesis, namely, that we have as much reason for believing that many animals have rights as we have for believing that humans do. Narveson's position is that this thesis can be seen to be false, if, as he thinks may be the case, egoism can give us a “coherent and quite theoretically smooth account of our moral intuitions” (p. 178).
The Nature of Laws
Authors: Tooley Michael
Published: June 2016

This paper is concerned with the question of the truth conditions of nomological statements. My fundamental thesis is that it is possible to set out an acceptable, non Circular account of the truth conditions of laws and nomological statements if and only if relations among universals — that is, among properties and relations, construed realistically — are taken as the truth-makers for such statements.

My discussion will be restricted to strictly universal, nonstatistical laws. The reason for this limitation is not that I feel there is anything dubious about the concept of a statistical law, nor that I feel that basic laws cannot be statistical. The reason is methodological. The case of strictly universal, nonstatistical laws would seem to be the simplest case. If the problem of the truth conditions of laws can be solved for this simple subcase, one can then investigate whether the solution can be extended to the more complex cases. I believe that the solution I propose here does have that property, though I shall not pursue that question here.
Women and John Locke; or, Who Owns the Apples in the Garden of Eden?
Authors: Clark Lorenne M. G.
Published: June 2016

The idea of creating a society guaranteeing equality between the sexes has never been considered by most political theorists. They have either endorsed, or simply accepted, the assumption that there is a natural inequality of the sexes which ought to be preserved in civil society. This same presupposition has excluded the family from the theorists’ framework of what are thought to be distinctively political institutions. Despite the centrality of the family to human life, it has been consigned to the domain of purely natural phenomena. The related belief that women and children must be relegated for theoretical purposes to the family, to be safely ignored in a realm of brute nature, suffices to allow such theorists to exclude women from the ontology of politics.

In looking at major theorists from this perspective, the task is not simply to show that they display sexist attitudes. The main purpose is to demonstrate that their theories rest on these assumptions and that they would be vastly different theories if these assumptions were not made.
The Repugnant Conclusion
Authors: Anglin Bill
Published: June 2016

On an act utilitarian view it is morally permissible if not obligatory to choose to perform an action which contributes as much as any other action to the total happiness (utility) of all those capable of enjoying happiness. As the view has just been stated, however, there is some question of how we are to understand the phrase “all those capable of enjoying happiness”. For even leaving aside the possibility that animals or spirits might be included, there is still the matter of the size of the population of humans “capable of enjoying happiness”. Furthermore, among our ethical decisions themselves are decisions which would cause a decrease or increase in population and which in perhaps even more specific ways determine the applicability of this phrase “all those capable of enjoying happiness”. According to the socalled classical or total utilitarian principle, the phrase in question is understood as describing some population whose existence will enable one to maximize the net amount of happiness. For on the classical principle what one is obligated to do is simply to maximize net happiness.
Responsibility of Persons for Their Emotions
Authors: Sankowski Edward
Published: June 2016

We sometimes blame persons, and we sometimes give them credit for the emotions they feel. We could, for example, speak of feeling hatred, resentment or envy as “reprehensible” in suitable circumstances, or say “He's to blame for feeling that way.” We could speak of feeling sympathy, affection or indignation as “commendable” in suitable circumstances, or say “He deserves credit for feeling that way.” And it is not just that we are assessing such emotion as somehow good or bad — in addition we may reproach or censure a person for the emotions he feels, or we may regard it as a credit to him that he feels as he does. In short, we apportion or impute responsibility to persons sometimes for the emotions they feel, and one important indication of this fact is in the sorts of judgments we can make about emotions.
The Role of Criteria in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy
Authors: Koethe John L.
Published: June 2016

Although the literature on Wittgenstein's notion of criteria is extensive, it seems unsatisfactory. Most interpretations of criteria not only misrepresent Wittgenstein; more importantly, they misconstrue the relation between a mental state and the behavior characteristic of that state. If by “criteria” Wittgenstein meant what he has been taken to mean, it is unlikely that any mental states have criteria. In this paper I shall argue that a proper interpretation of Wittgenstein's notion provides an account of the relation between some mental states and the behavior characteristic of them which is at least approximately correct.

According to current interpretations of criteria the relation between a form of behavior C and the mental state of which it is a criterion, S, is such that the proposition “A person displaying C is (or: very likely is) in S” is either a necessary truth, known a priori to be true, or “true in virtue of a definition, convention, or rule of language.”