bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Reply to Lycan
Authors: Morick Harold 
Published: June 2016

My paper “On the Indispensability of Intentionality” is faulted on two counts by William Lycan:(i)I fail to show that there are any non-intentional psychological verbs(ii)my argument against eliminative materialism contains a false premiss.I intend to deal swiftly with Lycan's indictment, as I believe it to be patently insubstantial. The aim, in my paper, of pointing out that there are non-intentional psychological verbs was to show that Lycan and others have been mistaken in believing that every psychological verb is intentional.I shall respond first to (ii), to Lycan's charge that the fifth premiss of his reconstruction of my argument against eliminative materalism is false, or at least not obviously true. The premiss reads: “If language takes place, it takes place between persons.” The eliminative materialist can reasonably deny this premiss, Lycan maintains, since it “seems plausible” to predict that we will someday be able to explain, with no reference to people's mental states or activities, what language is and how it works. I believe that because this “prediction” is in fact self-contradictory, it casts no doubt whatsoever on the fifth premiss of my anti-materialist argument.
On Doing What One Wants To Do
Authors: Taylor Gwennyth 
Published: June 2016

Liberalism, as currently manifest in the permissive, consumer society powerfully invokes the principle that, questions of harm aside, human beings ought to be able to do what they want to do; and, by implication, not be coerced into doing what they do not want to do. Liberty, defined in terms of want satisfaction, all wants being taken at par, and used by the more extreme adherents of liberalism as a necessary and even sufficient condition for the good life, is said to be increased or diminished with greater or decreasing opportunities for the satisfaction of wants: every want, given its rightful due, a success story.As an adjunct to this first principle comes another, also of great political importance; namely, that it is for the subject of the want to say what his wants are, he being, logically speaking, in an impregnable position to identify these shy denizens of his mental world.
Protagoras Unbound
Authors: White F. C. 
Published: June 2016

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (151 E-152C); as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils (152C-160D). Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken.In that part of the dialogue (151 D-186E) where the question is under examination whether or not knowledge and perception are the same, Socrates uses an idealized concept of knowledge. That is, he restricts the use of the word by setting down what he will consider to be the essential characteristics of knowledge, the sufficient and necessary conditions of its being instantiated. An excellent piece of philosophical procedure.
Observation and Subjectivity in Quine
Authors: Morick Harold 
Published: June 2016

“There ceases to be any reason to count awareness as an essential trait of observation.”-from “Stimulus and Meaning”As W. V. Quine sees it we must, in the interests of science, resist “the old tendency to associate observation sentences with a subjective sensory subject matter,” because such sentences are “meant to be the intersubjective tribunal of scientific hypotheses“; observation sentences are meant to be the independent and objective control of scientific theory. Accordingly, Quine has developed a behaviouristic operational definition of an observation sentence for the purpose of dispelling the air of subjectivity which surrounds the notion of observation (WB 19).In this paper I argue that his observation-sentence definition, or criterion, fails to fulfil this purpose. In the first half of the paper (sections 1 and 2), I describe in particular the kind of subjectivism which most worries Quine-what he calls the epistemological nihilism of Hanson, Kuhn and Polanyi-and I then turn to Quine's remedy, his observation criterion.
The Causality of Finite Modes in Spinoza'sEthics
Authors: Lennox James G. 
Published: June 2016

A central difficulty in the way of understanding Spinoza's metaphysical system is that of reconciling two apparently contradictory theories of the causation of finite modes (i.e., individual entities) found in hisEthics.The easiest way to present the problem is to place these two accounts side by side.A. All things which follow from the absolute nature of any attribute of God must forever exist, and must be infinite; that is to say, through that attribute they are eternal and infinite. (E1P21)A thing which has been determined to any action was necessarily so determined by God. (E1P26)Together, these propositions entail (at least) that (a) God is a necessary and sufficient condition for the occurrence of any action, and (b) that anything so determined is eternal and infinite. Compare these implications with the following.B. An individual thing or a thing which is finite and has determinate existence cannot exist nor be determined to action unless it be determined to existence and action by another cause which is also finite and has a determinate existence; and again this cause cannot exist nor be determined to action unless by another cause which is also finite and determined to existence and action, and so on,ad infinitum. (E1P28)
Foreknowledge and Possibility
Authors: Helm Paul 
Published: June 2016

Professor Holt's comments fall into two parts. He begins by raising some objections to the tentative rejection, in my paper, of the distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ facts. He then goes on to offer an argument to show that my defence of the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom fails, or is at least seriously questionable. For brevity I shall concentrate on his remarks on foreknowledge as I do not think that his interesting discussion of the distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ facts vitally affects the question about divine foreknowledge, the main point at issue.So I shall deal with Holt's claim that one can have the power to undo the fact of foreknowledge retroactively and argue that one can no more retroactively bring it about that God did not know than one can retroactively bring it about that he did know.
Alain et sa philosophie de la religion
Authors: Theau Jean 
Published: June 2016

AbstractPhilosophy of religion has become in our days a considerable part of philosophy. Alain's books on religion, published in the early thirties, remain among the most valuable which have been ever written by philosophers on this subject, but unfortunately they are scarcely known to-day, at least in North America. The most important of them — Les Dieux — has recently been translated in English: The Gods, Richard Pevear, New York, New Direction, 1974. Although inspired by Hegel, Alain's method and ideas really are very original as well as profound, because Alain's style and doctrine deeply differ from Hegel's. They differ no less from analytical philosophers’ models, because Alain never argues with religion but reflect on it, in order to draw a true picture of man. The following essay tries to indicate both the contents and the main features of this philosophy.
The “Many” in Republic 475a - 480a
Authors: White F. C. 
Published: June 2016

In this paper I wish to argue for a view that, despite its traditional standing, has not yet in any detail been defended. The view is briefly that in the Republic, at the point where Plato is engaged in contrasting the true philosopher with the “lover of sights and sounds”, he characterises sensible particulars — referred to as “the many” — as being bearers of opposite properties in so radical a manner that they can be said neither to be nor not to be: they lie somewhere between being and utter non-being.There are two related reasons why this traditional view should now be closely scrutinised. The first is that, whatever the outcome, the passage of the Republic in question — 475a-480a — is quite crucial to our understanding of the development of Plato's thought about sensible particulars. The second’ is that it has been suggested recently, and ably argued, that Plato is not in fact talking about particulars at all; rather about types or sorts of particulars.
Marx's Concept of Truth: A Kantian Interpretation
Authors: Myers David B. 
Published: June 2016

It would be misleading to make any reference to Marx's “theory” of truth-for nowhere in the corpus of Marx's writings will one find an essay dealing with truth in a thematic way. Marx's scattered remarks on truth occur within the context of discussions of social questions. What one can pull together on the topic of truth amounts at most to the sketch of a concept which applies to social knowledge and not knowledge in general. My aim will be to reconstruct Marx's concept of social truth on the basis of his writings on society and social theory.Those who want a systematic essay developing a general Marxist theory of knowledge have, of course, Lenin's classical formulation of Marxist epistemology in Materialism and Empiriocriticism. We also have Leszek Kolakowski's bold and heretical attack on Lenin's interpretation in “Marx and the Classical Definition of Truth” where we find the astounding claim that Marx's view of truth is closer to that of William James than to that of Lenin.Kolakowski's essay has been the subject of numerous attacks both by predictably indignant true believers and by independent, creative Marxists.
Berkeley's Ontology and the Epistemology of Idealism
Authors: Muehlmann Robert 
Published: June 2016

Berkeley's idealism consists of the following claims. Objects such as chairs, apples, mountains, and our bodies are combinations of sensible qualities. Sensible qualities and combinations of such are ideas or sensations. In the philosophical sense of ‘substance’ there is no such entity as a substance. There are minds which perceive and will: When a mind perceives it has sensations or ideas; and when a mind wills it produces or causes sensations or ideas. These claims are grounded in the ontological and epistemological framework of assumptions, distinctions and arguments informing Berkeley's doctrine thatesse est percipi aut percipere.The purpose of this paper is to explore and expose the main features of that framework.What is the ontological force and import on Berkeley's claim thatesse est percipi?One influential recent suggestion1 is this: Berkeley holds that (1) material substances do not exist, (2) the analysis of sensible things yields nothing but sensible qualities, (3) minds are mental substances and (4) no sensible quality or collection of sensible qualities can exist without inhering in some substance.
On Behalf of the Materialist
Authors: Pearce Glenn 
Published: June 2016

Suppose we are able to transplant Jones's pain centres into Smith's brain. Half way through the operation we test the pain centres by stimulating them electrically in vitro. Would there be pain? Roland Puccetti argues that there would not be. Because (a) pains must have owners and (b) the only available candidate for that role — the excised tissue — is logically unfit to play it. He concludes that the firing of such centres in a normally functioning brain cannot be pain either and that, therefore, materialism is false.So far as I can see, Puccetti's “refutation” is a series of nonsequiturs from start to finish, and that is what I mainly want to show. It will not follow, of course, that materialism is true. Indeed, I think the view which Puccetti attacks under that name is too naive to be taken seriously by anyone.
Frege’s Horizontal
Authors: Heck William C. , Lycan William G. 
Published: June 2016

Frege begins his exposition of the symbol system employed in his Begriffsschrift by introducing the sign ⟝, whereby, he says, “[a] judgment is always to be expressed” (p. 1 ).[The judgment sign] stands to the left of the sign or complex of signs in which the content of the judgment is given. If we omit the little stroke at the left of the horizontal stroke, then the judgment is to be transformed into a mere complex of ideas; the author is not expressing his recognition or nonrecognition of the truth of this. (Pp. 1–2)
Utilitarianism: Moral Principles and Conceptual Defences
Authors: Kasachkoff Tziporah 
Published: June 2016

Considerations of Justice and their place in the ethical evaluation of human behavior is the focus of almost all criticism of utilitarianism as an adquate and self-sufficient criterion for determining the morality of human action.In turn, the historical turns of utilitarianism—the move from a criterion which evaluates individual acts according to their utility to a criterion which evaluates acts in accordance with their conformity to de facto or ideal utilitarian rules, the presentation of utilitarianism as a logical thesis rather than a normative principle, the argument by some philosophers that the utilitarian consequences which Justify actions must be optimific in terms of happiness produced rather than mere pleasure experienced, and, by others, that the Justifying utilitarian consequences must be even more broadly construed as “instrinsically worthwhile“—all represent attempts by utilitarians to overcome, in one way or another, the charge of injustice.
Does Marx Have an Ethic of Self-Realization? Reply to Aronovitch
Authors: Allen Derek P. H. 
Published: June 2016

There are some Marxist moral philosophers who think that a distinctive and defensible ethic can be unearthed from Marx's writings. The task of unearthing it must, of course, be kept distinct from the task or elaborating and defending it. Professor Aronovitch undertakes both tasks in his paper, but he does not always succeed in keeping them apart. As a result, I believe, damage is done to the exegetical side of his project.The question of whether there is a Marxian ethic is a problem both of textual interpretation and of moral philosophy. Consider, for instance, the claim that Marx has an ethic whose centrepiece is a principle of selfrealization. It is an exegetical problem to provide evidence that a principle of self-realization is to be found in Marx and to explain how he understands it.
Les Deux ldentités de La Personne Humaine
Authors: Longeart-Roth Maryvonne 
Published: June 2016

La logique intervient doublement dans les discussions sur l'identité personnelle. D'une part, certaines théories de l’identité personnelle ont été critiquées pour ne pas respecter les propriétés logiques de l’identité, d'autre part, l’identité personnelle a été présentée comme un contreexemple à Ia logique de l’identité, justifiant une révision radicale de celle-ci.Ainsi, Ia logique de l’identité est le garde fou des théories de l’identité personnelle et l’identité personnelle est Ia pierre d'achoppement de Ia théorie logique de l’identité.L’identité logique est caractérisée par le fait d'être une relation d'équivalence, et par le principe de substitutivité. Or certaines situations comme par exemple les cas de dedoublement de personnalité, semblent déroger à ce principe. Si l'on peut dire que a et b sont le même homme mais pas Ia même personne, alors le principe, selon lequel si deux individus sont identiques ce qui est prédicable de l'un est prédicable de l'autre, ne s'applique plus.
Side Constraint Morality
Authors: Neumann Michael 
Published: June 2016

The Bible does not in general tell us to maximize or minimize anything. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount do n·ot, for example, tell us to maximize the glory of God. Instead they say, do this, don't do that, where ‘this’ and ‘that’ are replaceable by the name for such categories of action as stealing, committing adultery, and loving thy neighbour.Until recently, at least, non-maximizing moralists have appeared irrational when confronted with such questions as: what if stealing or lying will save a life? Because they exclude consideration of particular circumstances, the dicta of traditional morality seem myopic and prejudiced next to ‘end-state’ doctrines like utilitarianism, which require that careful empirical investigation accompany virtually every moral decision. To many, traditional morality seems sincere and straightforward, but lacking in intellectual respectability.
Omniscience, Foreknowledge and Human Freedom
Authors: Ramberan Osmond G. 
Published: June 2016

One argument for the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom runs as follows:(a) God is infallible.(b) God knows the outcome of human actions prior to their performance.(c) Therefore, no human action is free.In other words it is argued that if an essentially omniscient being (God) believes prior to the actual performance of a certain action that that action will be performed at a particular time the action in question cannot be a voluntary action. The crucial premise in the argument, it seems to me, is (b) the assumption that an essentially omniscient being can know the outcome of human actions in advance of their performance, or more simply put, that essential omniscience implies knowledge of future free acts. My purpose here is to argue that this assumption is self-contradictory.
Aristotle on the Principle of Non-Contradiction
Authors: Cohen S. Marc 
Published: June 2016

Not the least among the many puzzling features of the fourth book of Aristotle's Metaphysics is his discussion of the Principle of Non-Contradiction (hereafter ‘PNC’). Even leaving aside the obvious difficulty of determining what his arguments succeed in showing about PNC, we face the more fundamental problem of figuring out what he takes them to show. For he proceeds in such a way as to suggest that he is not always completely clear about what he is up to.Aristotle seems to be offering arguments in support of PNC. Yet to do so would be to try to demonstrate something he considers indemonstrable, to prove a first principle, to treat an ultimate explanans as also an explanandum – and to try to explain it. These maneuvers fly in the face of the teachings of the Organon, which allow no room for a demonstration, or proof (apodeixis), of PNC.
The Rationality of Collective Suicide
Authors: Chomsky Noam 
Published: June 2016

Surveying the historical record, we can find examples of societies so organized that they drifted towards catastrophe with a certain inevitability, systematically avoiding steps that could have changed this course. Our own society is an example, except that in this case the catastrophe that lies ahead involves national and perhaps global suicide. It is hardly unrealistic to surmise that we may be entering the terminal phase of history.The course that we pursue is deeply rooted in our social institutions and relatively independent of the choice of individuals who happen to fill institutional roles in the political or economic system. Furthermore, the steps taken towards destruction have a certain short-term rationality within the framework of existing institutions and the kind of planning they engender. Such planning is largely a matter of short-term calculation of gain; this is entirely natural in competitive societies, where those who contemplate the longer term are unlikely to be in the competition when it arrives, and this natural framework of planning carries over to the political system that is, overwhelmingly, under the influence of those who own and manage the private society.
On Defense by Nuclear Deterrence
Authors: Narveson Jan 
Published: June 2016

War winning, however, is impossible precisely because of the fact that there is no defense now against all-out nuclear use and probably not for the foreseeable future. A nuclear war could therefore be controlled and won only if one side consciously chose to lose the war, an event as unlikely in the future as it has been rare or nonexistent in the past. It is not necessary to win a nuclear war in order to deter it; one has only to ensure that both are likely to lose it.It takes (at least) two to make a war, and of those combatants, one (at least) must start it. If nobody starts the war, there won't be a war. This is as true in the nuclear era as it ever was. But if any given party is certain that he would lose any war initiated by him, then presumably he would not initiate a war. One way for A to make certain that B would lose any war B starts is by having an unstoppable superpowerful weapon of retaliation at hand.
Individual Responsibility, Nuclear Deterrence, and Excusing Political Inaction
Authors: Patten Steven C. 
Published: June 2016

‘The circle of responsibility is drawn around all who have or should have knowledge of the illegal and immoral character of the war.’--Richard FalkJonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth, is in a large part an earnest, aphoristic essay on individual responsibility in these times. Consider a representative passage: ‘With the generation that has never known a world unmenaced by nuclear weapons, a new order of the generation begins. In it, each person alive is called on to assume his share of the responsibility for guaranteeing the existence of all future generations.’ I have no doubt that many people in most countries — citizens of representative democracies in particular — know this call and feel in some dim and tentative way that there must be special individual responsibilities that have evolved with that defensive, strategic and political doctrine we know as nuclear deterrence. And how could we expect otherwise?
Rationality and Revolution: A Response to Holmstrom on the Logic of Working Class Collective Action
Authors: Johnson James 
Published: June 2016

In ‘Rationality and Revolution’ Nancy Holmstrom addresses an issue that has gained considerable currency among social and political theorists. She asks what insight, if any, Marxists might glean from rational choice accounts of radical working class collective action. The purpose of this comment is to argue that Holmstrom’s unfavorable estimation of rational choice accounts is ill-conceived.Holmstrom raises two basic objections to rational choice explanations of working class collective action. First, she contends that such accounts are limited, inadequate or incomplete and indicates several manifestations of this purported deficiency. Second, Holmstrom alleges that rational choice accounts are ideologically suspect and, as such, fundamentally at odds with Marxist explanations of revolutionary action. Holmstrom appears to believe that this second line of criticism ‘follows’ (309, 318) in some sense upon the first. H so, it would be sufficient to establish the error of her initial line of argument. Because neither of her criticisms can withstand scrutiny, however, independent reasons will be advanced for rejecting each.