bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Mental Events
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
In this essay, arguably the most debated paper in twentieth century, The Philosophy of Mind, Davidson establishes a non‐reductive variant of the identity of the mental and the physical; he does so by reconciling three prima facie inconsistent principles: first, that mental events interact causally with physical ones; second, that all events related as cause and effect fall under strict laws; third, that there are no strict laws on the basis of which mental events can be predicted. Davidson calls the last feature the ‘anomalism’ of the mental, which he defends at length in this essay; he combines it with an ontological bias towards the physical––i.e. while not all events are necessarily mental, they can all be given purely physical explanations––to yield ‘anomalous monism’. Davidson says that claims of identity and causal interaction hold off events regardless of how we describe them, whereas statements of law subsume them under specific (i.e., physical) descriptions (see Essay 7); it follows that if, as the first principle allows, a mental event causes a physical one, then (on the second principle) there is a description of it under which it instantiates a strict law––this description is physical, hence the mental event is identical to a physical one (the paper clarifies early on what warrants calling an event ‘mental’ or ‘physical’). In a short appendix, Davidson defends his analysis of nomological statements against Nelson Goodman's: it is not single predicates that are (or aren’t) intrinsically apt to figure in statements of strict laws but rather pairs of predicates which are (or aren’t) inductively suited to one another. And Davidson's claim in Essay 11 is that ‘mental and physical predicates are not made for one another’ because their respective ascription conditions (which he terms the ‘constitutive ideal of rationality’ and subsumption under strict law) allow at best for contingent, not nomological, generalizations; relatedly, the mental supervenes on the physical in the absence of strict laws correlating them.
Psychology as Philosophy
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This essay develops the relation, implicit in Essay 11, of intentional action to behaviour described in purely physical terms; Davidson repeats from Essay 3 that an action counts as intentional if the agent caused it, and asks to which degree a study of action thus conceived permits being scientific. Davidson stresses the central importance of a normative concept of rationality in attributing reasons to agents (i.e. in attributing beliefs and desires that, in Essay 1, make up their reasons); because this concept has no echo in physical theory, any explanatory schema governed by the concept is irreducible to physical theory. Davidson adduces several facts that prevent us from giving strict laws connecting reasons and action: first, we cannot give conditions that are not only necessary but also sufficient for an action to be intentional, using only the concepts of belief, desire, and cause––for we cannot specify the ‘right way’ in which beliefs and desires cause actions (see Essay 4); second, a certain holism of the mental pervades explanations of human behaviour: we cannot assign beliefs and desires independently of and prior to the actions they cause, a point Davidson takes Ramsey's work on subjective probability to have shown. Davidson appends a set of replies to critics, which clarify his attitude to psychology as a science, his analysis of statements of law, the principle of causal interaction (see Essay 11), and the relation between mutually irreducible explanatory schema.
Hume's Cognitive Theory of Pride
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Davidson works Hume's remarks on pride into a coherent propositional theory free from Hume's ‘epistemological machinery’. Hume claims that the causal basis for feeling pride is a belief relating the proud person to the object he feels proud about (occasionally identical to himself): one isn’t proud of a house unless it is one's own. Davidson spells out which formal conditions have to hold for the analysis to go through, indicating that the agent must be referred to pronominally in the belief, and that the agent needs to appraise the property he self‐ascribes rather than the one he ascribes to the object of his pride. Davidson explores whether Hume's own theories of ‘simple impressions’ (here, of pride), self, and causality can sustain the account and, if not, whether they are needed to sustain it. After subjecting the account to criticism, Davidson concludes that by causally explaining pride (in terms of the aforementioned belief plus the attitude of appraisal), Hume helps rationalize both pride and the further actions it may motivate and cause.
Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis volume collects Davidson's seminal contributions to the philosophy of language. Its key insight is that the concept of truth can shed light on various issues connected to meaning: Davidson, who assumes a partial and primitive understanding of the truth predicate, reverses Tarski who had succeeded in elucidating the concept of truth by taking the notion of ‘translation’ (preservation of meaning) for granted. In the first of five subsections into which the papers are thematically organized, Davidson develops the systematic constraints a theory of meaning has to meet and shows how an approach to semantics based on the concept of truth meets these demands better than any rival approach. Sect. 2 explores whether one can give semantic analyses of quotation, intensional contexts, and force within the extensional limitations of the truth‐theoretic framework. Viewing the theories of meaning developed in the first section as empirical, Sect. 3 inquires into their testability: can we verify these theories without presupposing concepts too closely aligned to that of meaning, interpretation, and synonymy? Davidson develops constitutive constraints on applying truth theories to interpret the speech behaviour of others: we have to view utterances for the most part as assertions of the speaker's beliefs and those beliefs as largely true and consistent (he terms this the ‘Principle of Charity’). Sect. 4 combines these interpretative constraints with the semantic concept of truth developed in Sect. 1 to tackle metaphysical issues. Davidson claims that truth is not relative to conceptual schemes but only to languages that can be shown to be largely correct about the world; consequently, by studying those languages via the semantic concept of truth we can derive ontological conclusions. Sect. 5 explores aspects of linguistic usage that form a particular threat to theories of meaning (such as Davidson's) that focus on the literal meaning of sentences: for truth theory to be adequate as a general theory of language, it must give valid accounts of sentence mood, illocutionary force, and metaphorical meaning.
On Saying That
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

AbstractDavidson asks what the logical form of belief and utterance attributions are. We have to specify ‘Galileo said that p’ for a potentially infinite number of sentences that can occupy the place of p; yet in doing so we must resort to finite means (something he is not sure Quine's analysis succeeds in), i.e. we must assign subsentential structure to p and referents to its components. Yet, as soon as we do this we are forced to license substitutions within p of coreferring expressions; as these are known to fail, Davidson argues that we must be wrong either about the referents in p or about the logical form of the attribution as a whole. After ruling out the first diagnosis, insisting against Frege that the expressions occurring in intensional contexts must have their standard reference, Davidson develops an ingenious analysis of the attribution's logical form. On this analysis, called ‘parataxis’, the attribution splits into two sentences, ‘Galileo said that. p’, where the ‘that’ in the first sentence functions as a demonstrative picking out the second sentence only if the two ‘say the same’ or are identical in meaning (a notion Davidson then analyses in truth‐theoretic terms familiar from Essay 2).
Belief and the Basis of Meaning
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

AbstractDavidson continues the analysis of the evidential base required for radical interpretation from Essay 9 and extends it into a systematic methodology. The ascription of meanings to utterances and intentions to speakers must proceed simultaneously because we lack a prior grasp on either (Davidson illustrates this by appeal to Ramsey's work on subjective probability); by the same token, if interpreters are to get anywhere at all they must start by an interpretative ‘Principle of Charity’ on which they assume at the outset that the speaker's beliefs are mostly true and that his utterances are, for the most part, assertions of what he believes or ‘holds true’. Consequently, interpreters must avoid attributing inexplicable error to the speaker, but rather ‘maximize agreement’. Davidson explains how these assumptions operate independently of detailed knowledge of what the speaker believes or asserts, and why they are indispensable to the process of radical interpretation; in specific, how we can have no independent foothold on propositional attitudes or speaker meaning (see Appendix); and he discusses the degree to which his interpretative constraints leave it indeterminate what the speaker means.
12 Reply to Foster
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

AbstractIn reply to a critical paper by John Foster, Davidson recognizes that his truth theory's axioms (from which the truth conditions of each sentence in the object language can be deduced) must not be merely true but law‐like, i.e. viewed as empirical axioms. That is, to rule out that p in ‘S’ is true iff p’ is not replaced by a coextensive p (say, ‘p and q’ for any q alike in truth value to p), the left and right hand sides of the biconditional must be linked counter‐factually. Second, Davidson's characterizations (in Essays 9 and 10) of the relation of a truth theory to its supporting evidence does not rule out the case in which someone knows both (E) the evidence and (T) the propositions composing the theory, yet fails to realize that (E) entailed (T) and that (T) constituted a theory apt to facilitate radical interpretation. In reply, Davidson analyses the required intensional idioms (in particular ‘S knows that . . .’) to remedy these criticisms by recourse to the paratactic method envisaged in Essay 7.
On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

AbstractDavidson attacks the intelligibility of conceptual relativism, i.e. of truth relative to a conceptual scheme. He defines the notion of a conceptual scheme as something ordering, organizing, and rendering intelligible empirical content, and calls the position that employs both notions scheme‐content dualism. He argues that such dualism (the ‘third, and perhaps, last dogma of empiricism’) is untenable since: (1) not only can we not parcel out empirical content sentence per sentence (as Quine's rejection of the analytic‐synthetic distinction had shown) but also (2) the notion of uninterpreted content to which several schemes are relative, and the related notion of a theory ‘fitting the evidence’, can be shown to lack intelligibility too. Davidson argues further that belief in incommensurable schemes or non‐intertranslatable languages is possible only on violating a correct understanding of interpretability (developed in Essays 9 and 10): if we succeed in interpreting someone else then we have shown there is no need to speak of two conceptual schemes, while if we fail ‘there is no ground for speaking of two.’
Reality Without Reference
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

AbstractDavidson replies to critics (in particular Hartry Field and Gilbert Harman) who have objected that truth theories cannot do the duty of meaning theories if they fail to elucidate the concept of reference on which they rely (Hartry Field, Gilbert Harman). In response, Davidson explains precisely why truth theories do not and need not explain or analyse the concepts of satisfaction and denotation (cf Essay 14) once these are characterized recursively (which requires that the basic vocabulary is finite, as Essay 1 had demanded on grounds of the language's learnability). He further shows how taking the relation of reference as being central when explaining the relation of language to world collapses into a discredited ‘building‐block theory’ of language (see Essay 1) and neglects the semantic primacy of the sentence. This primacy, argues Davidson, can only be acknowledged by making truth and sentential structure one's central semantic concepts; further, truth theories are testable only at the sentential level, not at that of subsentential reference.
The Inscrutability of Reference
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Davidson discusses two related claims of Quine: ontological relativity and the indeterminacy of reference. By comparing these claims to the related indeterminacies of truth and logical form, he suggests how we can minimize them by investigating them from within truth theories and radical interpretation. They can be minimized to a greater degree than Quine's own framework permits, but not to the high degree a causal theory of reference claims. Davidson objects to this theory, as he had in Essay 15, on the basis that reference assignments are tested at the sentential level, and that two interpretations which agree on that level may differ however much they like about subsentential assignments. Davidson then suggests a way of formulating Quine's insights without trace of relativism (cf Essay 13).
The Wave of Power‐Sharing Democracy
Authors: Lijphart Arend 
Published: October 2003

AbstractSets out the basic theory of consociational democracy, and reviews the main points of agreement and disagreement among political scientists concerning its utility as a model of democratic power‐sharing in divided societies. The theory suffers from an unavoidable unquantifiability, which should not, however, operate as a bar to its application as a fruitful source of guidelines for constitutional design.
Presidents, Parliaments, and Democracy: Insights from the Post‐Communist World
Authors: Frye Timothy 
Published: October 2003

AbstractExamines how institutional features combine with other factors to exacerbate one particular threat to democracy—the expansion of presidential power. It identifies three key conditions under which presidents in societies undergoing regime change expand their formal powers: first, that economic reforms producing concentrated benefits may lead the winners from those reforms to seek institutional change in the powers of the presidency; second, that countries with fragmented parliaments tend to experience an increase in presidential powers; third, that presidents in countries with newly crafted constitutions are just as likely to seek expansion of their powers as those in countries with revised versions of communist‐era constitutions. It then reviews the generally negative consequences of increases in presidential power for democracy, with examples from various formerly communist countries in Eastern and Central Europe.
Constitutional Asymmetries: Communal Representation, Federalism, and Cultural Autonomy
Authors: Ghai Yash Pal 
Published: October 2003

AbstractExamines and compares three constitutional mechanisms for the political recognition of ethnic minorities and their potential to ameliorate or aggravate ethnic tensions—communal representation through the electoral process (with examples from Cyprus, India, Bosnia‐Herzegovina, and Fiji), territorial autonomy through asymmetric federalism, and cultural autonomy.
Institutional Design, Ethnic Conflict Management, and Democracy in Nigeria
Authors: Suberu Rotimi T. , Diamond Larry 
Published: October 2003

AbstractExplores six topics for which Nigerian politics offer rich material for analysis: the relative impacts of democratic constitutionalism and military authoritarianism on inter‐ethnic relations; the relationship between the form and character of federalism on the one hand, and success or failure in the management of ethnic conflict on the other; the relative auspiciousness of presidential and parliamentary government for deeply divided developing countries; the latent tensions between integrative and accommodative (consociational) solutions to the dilemmas of national unity; the duality and complementarity of formal and informal practices for the management of ethnic conflict; and the possible elements of a reform agenda for promoting stable, peaceful, and democratic management of ethnic conflict.
From Perfection to Infinity
Authors: Kretzmann Norman 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Aquinas now takes up a different methodology—what is called the ‘relational method’—to provide a systematic basis for developing the consideration of God's substance. The introduction of universal perfection appears to provide an opportunity for investigating specific relationships between God and one or another kind of thing. An understanding of the relationship of causal dependence is indispensable to natural theology. Aquinas then introduces his arguments for God's divine attributes of goodness, uniqueness, and infinity.
Intellect
Authors: Kretzmann Norman 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
The natural theology we have been investigating has undertaken to show that there must be a necessarily unique and absolutely simple being that constitutes the ultimate explanation of everything. The accounts that Aquinas has provided of certain important metaphysical attributes seem to anticipate the attribution of mind to God. Aquinas indicates that applying a creaturely predicate to God in the way prescribed by the relational method is rarely, if ever, a matter of simply extending the use of a familiar term. Only intellectivity, not reason or wisdom, is the best choice of perfection, specific to humans. Aquinas gives various arguments showing intellect's place in the extensive aspect of God's universal perfection, which underlies divine causation.
Will
Authors: Kretzmann Norman 
Published: October 2003

AbstractSince intellect and will are conceptually distinct, and since intellect without will would not constitute a person, showing that personhood must be attributed to reality's ultimate principle remains incomplete until it can be shown to be characterized essentially by will as well. Before taking up Aquinas's arguments for will in God, his conception of will generally is examined, as the absolutely universal appetitus for what is good, associated with all being. Aquinas's arguments proposing to derive divine will from divine intellect as well as the argument from freedom are presented. The Dionysian principle, which Aquinas accepts: goodness is by its very nature diffusive of itself and (thereby) of being, commits him to a necessitarian explanation of God's willing of things other than himself.
Joy, Love, and Liberality
Authors: Kretzmann Norman 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
There can be no passions of any sort in God because, for instance, passions are associated with the sensory part of the human soul. If the having of intellective attitudes, however, is simply a corollary of the having of intellect and will, then Aquinas's relational method mandates attributing joy and pleasure to God. Patterned on the attribution of pleasure and joy, active divine love is a corollary of intellective appetite in God. Aquinas approaches the associative aspect of God's love when he takes as primary what appears to be God's volition of union with other things, and then uses that as the basis for one of his arguments for the thesis that God loves himself and other things. Aquinas argues that some virtues, such as truthfulness, justice, and liberality, which are sources of activities devoid of passion, are divine attributes. Liberality is the virtue most pertinent to the subject matter of this chapter because liberality is the one that is indispensable to love.
The Metaphysics of Creation
Authors: Kretzmann Norman 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe Metaphysics of Creation is a continuation of the project begun in The Metaphysics of Theism, moving the focus to the second book of Aquinas's Summa contra gentiles. Building upon his account of God's existence and nature, Aquinas argues that the existence of things other than God must be explained by divine creation out of nothing. Arguments follow to identify God's motivation for creating, to defend the possibility of a beginningless universe, and to explain the origin of species. Aquinas focuses exclusively on creatures with intellects, with the result that more than half of his natural theology of creation constitutes a philosophy of mind.
Nature from the Top Down
Authors: Kretzmann Norman 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe practical purpose of SCG is to teach theism. In Book II, Aquinas will argue carefully and specifically for divine creation, then undertake to explain the fact of nature's prolific diversity, and will then, after developing the distinction between immanent and transeunt divine activity, devote the rest of Book II to considering the results of God's transeunt activity, sharply focused on the existence of intellects in nature. This book will examine all three of those aspects of Aquinas's metaphysics of creation, sometimes offering criticisms or extensions of various features of them.
Creation as Doubly Universal Production
Authors: Kretzmann Norman 
Published: October 2003

AbstractWith respect to God's producing of things, the divine transeunt activity is considered in this chapter; Aquinas argues that God is for all things, the cause of being. God's production of things is distributively universal (for all things) and intrinsically universal (the cause of being). This characterization of intrinsic universality is entailed by the production's being absolutely independent of antecedent matter (and, therefore, devoid of any operation on any pre‐existing stuff). The notion of prime matter must be included among the products (or at least among the by‐products) of God's universal production for Aquinas, although the justification he offers is not the strongest sort available to him. One way of combining the distributive and intrinsic universality of God's production of things is to view the primordial universe as its single immediate effect. God's creating involves no movement, successiveness, or change.
Metaphysical Hybrids
Authors: Kretzmann Norman 
Published: October 2003

AbstractAquinas investigates how intellective substances can be united with corporeal substances. After ruling out several kinds of union: mixing, contact (taken literally), fastening, continuity, and composition, Aquinas goes on to consider power contact distinct from corporeal contact and unconditional union of intellective and corporeal substances in respect of a defining characteristic. The only way this would be possible is for one of the substances to be the substantial form for which the other is the matter. At this point, Aquinas shifts to the nature of human beings and human souls. Many arguments are examined and rejected by Aquinas before arriving at his account of a soul as the first principle of life in a living body, not part of that body, but rather its substantial form.