bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Narrative Explanation and Redescription
Authors: Burhenn Herbert 
Published: June 2016

Over the past decade numerous philosophers have devoted considerable effort to explicating and defending the claim that narrative can be a satisfactory form of explanation. Much of this interest in narrative has taken the form of a reaction against the covering-law model of explanation-particularly against the claim that that model is applicable to history and to what W. B. Gallie has called “the genetic sciences.” What has been lacking from most of this discussion of narrative is any very clear indication of just what narrative is or any extended attempt to delineate its logical features. The philosophical yield of introducing the concept “narrative” into discussions of explanation has frequently appeared to be very small.In a recent paper Michael Ruse has argued that the logical structure of explanations relating to the theory of evolution can be examined more helpfully by using the covering-law model than by using a narrative model of explanation.
Could Propositions Explain Anything?
Authors: Lycan William G. 
Published: June 2016

In “Quine on Meaning and Existence, I,” Gilbert Harman makes the following exegetical claim about Quine's attitude towards the postulation of propositions:Quine is not against the postulation of intensional objects because he has a ‘taste for desert landscapes.’ It is not that he thinks intensional objects, propositions or meanings, are a queer kind of entity (as one might believe that electrons must be a queer kind of entity). His complaint is not that intensional objects, as something abstract, offend his sensibilities in the way that they no doubt offend the sensibilities of Nelson Goodman. He believes in sets, although sets are abstract entities. Quine's argument against the second cluster of views [propositional theories of meaning] is that the various views in that cluster are theories that don't explain what they purport to explain.
Aristotle: The Value of Man and the Origin of Morality
Authors: Rist J. M. 
Published: June 2016

One of the purposes of this paper is to explore a number of questions which-to judge from what he assumes–Aristotle might well have asked, but which he apparently did not ask. It is often informative in the history of philosophy to point out the (apparently obvious) questions which are not raised; it sets those which are raised in a more precise frame.It can be argued that Aristotle implies that it is possible to look like a human being–and indeed be called a human being–without “really” or “fully” being one. Leaving aside the status of females (who for Aristotle are males manques, analogous to the blind or deaf, and of children, we cannot be certain that all adult males of the class whose members look like men “really” are men.
Knowledge and Evaluation
Authors: Malinovich Stanley 
Published: June 2016

According to an accepted view of the nature of evaluation, which many trace to Hume, knowledge does not provide us with the criteria for judging whether something is good. For this, it is said, we need something like a pro-attitude such as C. L. Stevenson argues for, or a decision such as R. M. Hare argues for. Some act of the will is required to create the criteria for evaluation. I shall argue against this view. I shall argue that the criteria for evaluating something are identical with the criteria for classifying it and that, therefore, the knowledge which provides us with the criteria for classification provides us with the criteria for evaluation.In Section I, I give a brief account of the way in which knowledge provides the criteria for a classification and the significance of borderline cases and degree differences in classification. In Section II, I develop the idea of degree differences in classification and tie it to the idea of evaluation. In Section III, I defend my account of evaluative criteria by contrasting it with R. M. Hare's account, and I argue that the criteria for the class concept of man are at the basis of moral evaluation. I end with a brief illustration of my thesis from Kant'sMetaphysics of Morals.
God, Other Minds, and the Inference to the Best Explanation
Authors: Ostien Philip A. 
Published: June 2016

Professor Plantinga's “scandalous” conclusion thatIf my belief in other minds is rational, so is my belief in God. But obviously the former is rational; so, therefore, is the latterrests in part on the twin claims that the best reason we have for belief in other minds is the analogical argument, and the best reason we have for belief in God is the teleological argument. The conclusion also rests on Plantinga's analyses of these two arguments, which show that both fail for very similar reasons. Thus the beliefs based on these arguments are “in the same epistemological boat,“ and Plantinga draws his conclusion. This is, as James Tomberlin says, “an ingenious argument for the conclusion that belief in God is justified in the absence of any good reason whatever.“In this paper I wish to consider the two claims mentioned above, that the best reasons we have for belief in other minds and belief in God are the analogical and teleological arguments, respectively.
Reply to Morick on Intentionality
Authors: Lycan W. G. 
Published: June 2016

A number of philosophers have defended the view that mental or psychological verbs share a certain distinctive logical feature, though there is disagreement as to exactly what feature it is. Harold Morick has recently accused several of these philosophers (including Brentano, Chisholm and me) of having “ignored or misinterpreted” verbs of a certain kind, in their search for this characteristic trait of mental verbs (normally called “intentionality“).The verbs he is talking about are those that represent some of a person's activities, which are physical activities but which that person must allegedly be conscious in order to perform. Since a “basic sentence” containing such a verb typically entails the existence of its object's referent, Morick contends, the verb in question fails io count as “intentional” either on Brentano's definition, on Chisholm's, or on mine (each of these three definitions requires that a basic sentence containing an intentional verb not entail the existence of its object's putative referent.). Thus, Brentano, Chisholm and I have failed to make good our claim that all mental or psychological verbs are intentional.
Necessary Properties And Linnaean Essentialism
Authors: Enç Berent 
Published: June 2016

Quine's arguments against the attribution of essential properties de re to individuals have been the motivation for attempts at reinstating essentialism as a respectable metaphysical thesis and at defending the coherence of modal logic in general.I shall argue here along somewhat different lines, that the particular version of essentialism Quine objects to is in fact untenable but that this conclusion is far from entailing a commitment to some version of conventionalism, and in particular that it does not entail the view that the only kind of necessity that is coherent is de dicto necessity.In what follows, I shall assume, without arguing for it, that de re essentialism and subjunctive conditionals are intimately related, and in particular, that any version of de re essentialism which conflicts with our basic intuitions about subjunctive conditionals is untenable.
Acrasia, Human Agency and Normative Psychology
Authors: Kubara Michael 
Published: June 2016

Is acrasia possible? Can you do wrong knowingly? Opinion divides. Each, to the other side, is a paradox monger.At issue is the most felicitous set of concepts and principles to bring to descriptions and evaluations of human action. So to speak, such a set is an outline of a script for reality to play: it provides identities and relations in which individuals and events or whatever may be cast. Deniers typically begin with a set that rules acrasia out of court, recasting alleged examples in a different explanatory mold. Affirmers typically begin with plausible examples and look for a theoretical framework to place them in, taking those that disallow it to be absurd. But any denier, on legitimate dialectical grounds, can point out that such a reductio is a petitio. So it is a resilient issue, still with us after being bounced around so much in history.
On Choosing a Morality1
Authors: Thomas G. B. 
Published: June 2016

John Rawls’ use of a contractarian strategy for justifying basic principles of justice has raised the hope that a similar strategy might work for a theory of right and moral principles generally. I want to show that this hope cannot be fulfilled.In what follows I interpret contractarianism in a Rawlsian way on the grounds that his is the most plausible version of the doctrine we are likely to get. I am not however concerned with the details of Rawls’ argument for justice but instead with an idea that appears to underlie the contractarian strategy. In order to avoid the complications of Rawlsian exegesis, I choose to discuss the doctrine as it might be used to justify a moral principle of mutual assistance and not as Rawls in fact uses it to justify principles of justice.
Revisability and Rational Choice
Authors: Buchanan Allen 
Published: June 2016

1. There is no dearth of objections to Rawls'sA Theory of justice.Scores of articles and several books begin by praising the rigor and depth of Rawls's book — and end by concluding that it is thoroughly mistaken. In the present essay I will not add to the list of negative responses toA Theory of Justice.Instead I will attempt to reply to Rawls's critics in a way which makes a positive contribution to his theory.2. Among the many objections that have been raised against Rawls's theory, two are of paramount importance. It is these two objections I shall attempt to meet. They may be formulated as follows.
Locke and the “Ancient Hypothesis”
Authors: Palmer David 
Published: June 2016

John Locke sometimes claims in An Essay Concerning the Human Understanding that secondary qualities are qualities of bodies and not simply ideas. Few commentators, however, have taken that claim seriously. This is at least partly because Locke also claims that ideas of secondary qualities do not resemble the secondary qualities of bodies and the commentators have taken these two doctrines to be irreconcilable. In this paper I shall briefly present the traditional reasons for thinking the two doctrines incompatible, and then present Locke's neglected attempt to reconcile these two claims.Thomas Reid in his Philosophical Works tries to explain the traditional interpretation of Locke's claims about the nature of secondary qualities. In doing so he cites an “ancient hypothesis“:… the mind, like a mirror receives the images of things from without, by means of the senses; so that their use must be to convey the images into the mind.
The Argument of Kant's Grundlegung, Chapter 1
Authors: Potter Nelson 
Published: June 2016

A great deal has been written about Kant's Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. But in those writings little attention has been devoted to analyzing the structure and argument of Chapter I of that work. The discussions of Chapter I that one finds in most of the commentaries on the Grundlegung do little to uncover and set forth any overall structure or argument in the chapter.But in fact Chapter I contains a sustained argument beginning with the first sentence and continuing through to the point where the principle of morality is stated toward the end of the chapter. When this argument is made apparent, it is also apparent that Chapter I has a definite role to play in the economy of the whole work. Chapter I establishes what the “supreme principle of morality” is by an analysis of the concept of moral goodness. Chapter II continues with an exposition, using technical philosophical terminology, of that same principle; and Chapter III, of course, aims to justify that principle.
Strawson's Transcendental Deduction of Other Minds
Authors: Martin J. L. 
Published: June 2016

It is only because the solution is possible that the problem exists. So with all transcendental arguments (p. 30).Although P. F. Strawson mentions transcendental arguments only once in Individuals, there is no doubt as to his commitment to transcendental method. This paper will offer a critique of such a method, as it functions in a single context. Strawson gives a transcendental argument to refute scepticism with regard to other minds. We are all familiar with the gist of this argument. The sceptic holds that one can ascribe states of consciousness only to oneself. This assertion obviously implies that one can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself. But, Strawson argues, “One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others” (p. 96). In other words, the second assertion implies a third, that one can ascribe states of consciousness to others. The third assertion, though implied by the sceptic's initial assertion, contradicts it. Thus scepticism is shown by transcendental argument to imply its own denial. According to Strawson, the very statement of a sceptical position always presupposes concepts sufficient for its solution. “It is only because the solution is possible that the problem exists.”
Scientific Reduction and the Mind-Body Problem
Authors: Mucciolo L. F. 
Published: June 2016

IntroductionThe identity thesis (IT hereafter) asserts that for every psychological state P there is a neural state N such that P=N. In the hope of rendering IT clear and plausible many identity theorists have compared psycho-neural identity claims to such theoretical identities as temperature is identical with molecular mean kinetic energy. However such a comparison admits a weak and a strong interpretation. According to the weak interpretation, psycho-neural identities are said to be like theoretical identities in the sense that the former are contingent claims just as the latter are presumed to be. Identity theorists have appealed to the contingent status of IT in order to meet prima facie objections of the following sort. We can imagine ourselves undergoing a pain, although we are not undergoing the neural process which the identity theorist claims is identical with the pain. Indeed we can imagine ourselves being in pain and yet not having a brain at all. Hence IT is false. Identity theorists have replied by arguing that this objection merely shows that IT is not a necessary truth, or that psychological and neurological terms do not have the same meaning.
Bentham on Public and Private Ethics
Authors: Stearns J. Brenton 
Published: June 2016

James Collins writes that some modern philosophers have not been given revisionary treatment by their critics.This is the case with Wolff, Bentham, and Comte, who are held fast in their respective categories of rationalism and utilitarianism and positivism, with only minor flurries of research aimed at reconsidering them from a fresh angle.Fortunately, Bentham's day has now come, and we have in David Lyons’ In the Interest of the Governed, a major new interpretation. Lyons permits us to continue to call Bentham a “utilitarian,” but we have to revise what we understand by the term in this context.
Davidson's Semantic Program
Authors: Stich Stephen P. 
Published: June 2016

Donald Davidson did it. He did it slowly, deliberately, in more than a half dozen widely noted essays. What he did was to elaborate a program for the study of empirical semantics. Nor did he stop there. He went on to apply his program to some of the problems that have long bedeviled semantics: action sentences, indirect discourse and propositional attitudes.My goal in this paper is to assess Davidson's achievement. The first step is to assemble the program from the sketches and hints scattered among Davidson's papers. This is the project of my first section where my aim is sympathetic exposition. Since Davidson sometimes seems to be playing a game of hide and seek with his reader, my reconstruction of his program and arguments is of necessity occasionally speculative. In the second section my stance turns critical. There are anomalies in the program; the sort of theory Davidson advocates is not the sort delivered. When the problems are pushed, I think the program loses whatever initial plausibility it may have had. It is my contention that Davidson has provided no serious framework for the empirical study of natural language.
Criteria, Perception, and Other Minds
Authors: Hall Harrison 
Published: June 2016

In the first section of this paper I will look briefly at one of the reasons why criteria do not provide a quick solution to the problem of other minds. I will then develop a more illuminating account (for epistemological purposes) of the relationship between the behavior and minds of others. In the final section I will attempt to supply what needs to be added to any account of this relationship to solve the epistemological problem.By the “problem of other minds” I mean the skeptical questions as to how and whether we know that others are having certain thoughts, experiencing certain feelings or emotions, in one or another mental state, and so on. Suppose that:-A baseball player has just been called out on strikes. The game is the most important one of the year for the team and the player's performance will have a direct bearing on the outcome of his contract negotiations for the following year.
Aquinas on the Self-Evidence of God's Existence
Authors: La Croix Richard R. 
Published: June 2016

In the Summa Theologia I (STI), beginning at question 2, article 3, and in the Summa Contra Gentiles I (CGI), beginning at chapter 13, Aquinas provides five proofs for the existence of God. These proofs are intended to demonstrate that God exists and to provide the foundation for a larger program to demonstrate many other doctrines which are held by faith. However, the program which Aquinas sets up for himself in the two great Summae is trivial and unnecessary if the existence of God is self-evident in such a way that God's existence needs no demonstration. So, as a preamble to the five ways, Aquinas argues that the existence of God is not self-evident in any way that would hinder his program of rational theology.In STI the argument occurs in question 2, article 1, and in CGI it occurs in chapters 10 and 11. Aquinas also argues the same point in Commentum in Primum Librum Sententiarum (CS) distinction 3, question 1, article 2, and in Quaestiones Disputate De Veritate (DV) question 10, article 12.
Why Margolis Hasn't Defeated the Entailment Thesis
Authors: Mannison D. S. 
Published: June 2016

In two recent papers Joseph Margolis has sketched a situation, his characterisation of which involves a denial of the ubiquitous contention that knowing that p is logically sufficient for believing that p. There are not many philosophers who would follow him in this denial of what is most usually taken as the only “natural” way of construing knowledge. If Margolis has not succeeded in constructing a counterexample to the official view, and I do not believe that he has, it is of some importance to understand just why he has failed. No epistemological gain is achieved by meeting Margolis with a question begging reply, as I think has been done by his critic, J.A. Barker.The case the Margolis offers is this:… S may not have thought about P at all, may have thought about Q-which is “significantly” related to P (even, perhaps, by entailment), and believes that Q; on that condition, it is conceivably true that S knows that P (other conditions being satisfied).
Can a Justified Belief Be False?
Authors: Odegard Douglas 
Published: June 2016

Edmund Gettier objects to analysing knowledge as justified true belief (JTB) on the ground that someone can justifiably infer a true conclusion from a justified false premise and hence not know the conclusion's truth, although the conclusion is justified. For instance, someone can justifiably deduce a true p v r from a justified but false p, where he has no justification for the true r. Gettier's objection draws on two assumptions: first, that a justified belief can be false; second, that a premise can justify a conclusion even though the premise is false.Some JTB advocates grant the first assumption but deny the second. They usually concede the first assumption to protect the respectability of non-deductive inference. The argument is that if evidence e can nondeductively justify the conclusion c, then it must be possible for c to be justified and yet false, since e does not entail c. Although the assumption is sound, the argument as it stands fails to show it. But let us set this point aside for the moment.
Ayers on Relative Identity
Authors: Griffin Nicholas 
Published: June 2016

In a recent paper M.R. Ayers attacks two widely held doctrines:(I) Non-arbitary individuation requires principles of individuation and these are supplies only by sortal general terms.(R) It is possible for an item a to be the same as b but not the same as b.I shall follow Ayers in calling a theory which includes both (I) and (R) ‘conceptualist’ or ‘sortalist’ (although I shall also use the more familiar label ‘relative identity theory’), but I shall not allow him to appropriate the honorific term ‘realist’ for his own theory, which I shall term ‘absolutist’. My sole purpose here is to defend (I) and (R) in turn against Ayers’ attacks on them. Thus I shall ignore intermediate positions which accept (R) but reject (I) or vice-versa.Ayers’ paper is long and in many respects obscure; there are many points in it which require discussion but which can't receive it here for lack of space. In particular, I shall ignore his lengthy comments on the constitutive ‘is’, and also the wider metaphysical remarks in his conclusion and the postscript on Dummett.
Necessary and Essential Existence
Authors: Plantinga Alvin 
Published: June 2016

First, I wish to thank Professor Carter for his comments. They do contain some misunderstandings, however, some of which I shall try to straighten out.In The Nature of Necessity (NN) I argued that every object has the property of existence essentially, but only some things — propositions, properties, perhaps God — have the property of necessary existence (p. 61).
Foreknowledge and the Necessity of the Past
Authors: Holt Dennis C. 
Published: June 2016

In “Divine Foreknowledge and Facts” Paul Helm defends a traditional argument to the incompatibility of foreknowledge and free will “against the attempts of Kenny and some other recent writers to provide a reconciliation.” I shall here set out a reconciliationist position similar to those he attacks, but innocent of the charges he makes against them.The argument, discussed by St. Thomas in the Summa Theologiae, employs the doctrine of the necessity of the past to show that literally prior knowledge of a free action is impossible. Since prior knowledge of an action is past relative to the ·action, the fact of that knowledge is necessary. It is a past fact, and so cannot be undone. From this it follows that the action itself must be necessary; for necessity is transitive, and knowledge of p implies p. But only contingent actions can be free, and so no free action can be foreknown.
Le Dieu des philosophes et le Dieu des bonnes femmes
Authors: Reboul O. 
Published: June 2016

L'article de M. Theau offre peu de prises au commentaire. II est lui-même un commentaire très dense et structuré de Ia philosophie religieuse d’ Alain. Oui, pour Alain l'anthropormorphisme est le vrai de Ia religion; celle-ci ne nous révèle que notre vérité humaine; mais notre vérité humaine a précisément besoin de nous être révélée. Et M. Theau de poser une question fort pertinente: comment l'imagination — cette imagination qui pour Alain est purement passionnelle et nullement créatrice — peut-elle Créer les dieux et, plus encore, s'élever de Ia religion de Ia nature à Ia religion de l'esprit, au christianisme? Comment “Ia folie du logis” peut-elle nous révéler le vrai de l'homme?Je voudrais revenir sur Ia réponse que l'auteur apporte à cette question, non pour Ia critiquer mais pour Ia préciser. Je terminerai sur Ia critique de fond que M. Theau adresse à ('auteur des Dieux.