bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Motivation and Agency
Authors: Mele Alfred R. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractWhat is motivation, and what is its place in the lives of intelligent agents? This is Mele's guiding question. His search for an answer is sensitive to the theoretical concerns of philosophers of mind and action and moral philosophers, and is informed by empirical work in psychology. Mele defends answers to a web of questions about motivation and human agency, including the following: Will an acceptable moral theory make warranted conceptual or metaphysical demands of Kantian or other kinds on a theory of human motivation? Where does the motivational power of practical reasoning lie? How are reasons for action related to motivation? What do motivational explanations of different kinds have in common? What room will an acceptable view of the connection between motivational strength and intentional action leave for self‐control? Will a proper account of motivated, goal‐directed action be a causal account, and can a causal theory of the nature and explanation of action accommodate human agency par excellence? His answers collectively provide a distinctive, detailed, comprehensive, causal theory of human agency.
Motivation and Desire
Authors: Mele Alfred R. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractIntroduces some terminology and important distinctions. Terms defined include “action–desire,” “motivational base,” and “motivation‐encompassing attitudes.” Among the distinctions drawn are: occurrent vs. standing desires, intrinsic vs. extrinsic desires, and desires vs. intentions. Other topics examined include direction of fit and the connection between motivation and desire.
Goal‐Directed Action
Authors: Mele Alfred R. 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Argues for a constraint on a proper theory of motivation – namely, that proper motivational explanations of goal‐directed actions are causal explanations. The chapter criticizes the thesis that acceptable teleological explanations of actions are not causal explanations and it offers a solution to a problem that deviant causal chains pose for a causal theory of action.
Attitudes That Essentially Encompass Motivation to Act
Authors: Mele Alfred R. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractOffers an analysis of a paradigmatic species of motivational attitude, one that essentially encompasses motivation to act, as action–desires and intentions do. It is argued that attitudes of this kind have, essentially, a functional connection to intentional action that beliefs lack. A subsidiary thesis is that so‐called “negative actions” do not undermine the analysis offered because, in fact, they divide into non‐actions and positive actions misdiagnosed as negative ones. The main support for the idea that there are truly negative actions – namely, that sometimes it is intentional on a person's part, and for a reason, that he does not do something – is explained away.
Human Agency Par Excellence
Authors: Mele Alfred R. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractRebuts an objection David Velleman has raised against what he calls “the standard story of human action.” It is argued that the objection is misguided. The chapter reinforces the significance of various aspects of the causal theory of human agency developed in this book and shows more fully and explicitly how that theory applies to the upper range of human action, or what may be regarded as human action par excellence.
Introduction
Authors: Foot Philippa 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe aim of the book is to determine the category to which the moral evaluation of human actions belongs. This involves making certain distinctions in the logical grammar of evaluations. Drawing upon Peter Geach's distinction, argues that ‘predicative’ adjectives and ‘attributive’ adjectives are logically different: a predicative adjective, such as ‘red’, operates independently of any noun to which it is attached, whereas an ‘attributive’ adjective, such as ‘good’, depends radically on that which is said to be good. The general thesis is that moral judgement of human actions and dispositions is one of those genres of evaluation that is characterized by the fact that its objects are living things.
Immoralism
Authors: Foot Philippa 
Published: October 2003

AbstractFoot discusses Nietzsche's immoralism in the light of the foregoing account of moral evaluation. She begins with a preliminary account of Plato's response to immoralism in the first two books of the Republic. Foot distinguishes three theses in Nietzsche that may be called ‘immoralist’: the denial of free will, the attack on Christian or ‘pity’ morality, and the denial of intrinsic badness in acts; she discusses only the latter two. Regarding the attack on Christian morality, Foot argues that Nietzsche got the facts about human life wrong; regarding the claim that an act was right or wrong only in relation to the nature of the person who performs the act, Foot argues that this is a poisonous doctrine that has no sound basis in psychology. She concludes that Nietzsche's revaluation of all values might be valid for a different species, but cannot be valid for human beings.
Abstract Ideas
Authors: Winkler Kenneth P. 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
If representation is resemblance, how we do we think of groups or classes of things? According to a tradition Berkeley opposed—a tradition represented by Locke—we do so by forming abstract or incomplete ideas. I show that Berkeley's opposition does not depend on his own personal failure to form abstract images, but on what he took to be the impersonal or objective impossibility of abstract objects. Berkeley himself accounts for general thinking not in terms of abstract or incomplete ideas, but in terms of our selective attention to ideas both concrete and determinate. Contentful thought about the natural world is impossible without ideas as objects, Berkeley believes, but ideas do not, in his view, completely fix the content of our thought.
The Possibility of Incarnation
Authors: Swinburne Richard 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
The Council of Chalcedon declared that one individual, Jesus Christ, had two natures – divine and human. His divine nature must be regarded as consisting of the essential divine properties plus the specific properties essential to the second member of the Trinity. The human nature must be regarded not as a substance, but as the contingent properties analysed in Ch. 1 that make someone human. New Testament and later‐Christian doctrine require that we understand the two collections of properties as instantiated somewhat separately from each other, so that Christ has two minds, a divine one and a human one, the human one not being fully aware of the divine one. Although Christ could have done no wrong, he could – but (according to Christian doctrine) did not – yield to temptation to do less than the best.
Semantics for Belief
Authors: Stalnaker Robert C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractA defence of a straightforward semantics for statements of the form ’x believes that P’ that takes the belief relation to be a relation between a believer and a possible‐worlds proposition. The apparatus developed in Ch. 4, ’Assertion’, is extended using the notion of a propositional concept, and of the diagonal proposition determined by a propositional concept to explain puzzle cases in which beliefs about identities are ascribed.
On What's in the Head
Authors: Stalnaker Robert C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractA criticism of internalism (and a defence of externalism) about the content of propositional attitudes. It is argued that the hypothesis that there is a notion of narrow content that might be used to characterize intentional mental states is a substantive hypothesis. There is little reason to believe that the hypothesis is true, or that we need a notion of narrow content to explain the relevance of propositional attitudes to the explanation of behaviour. Characterizations of narrow content by Jerry Fodor and by Daniel Dennett are criticized. Different ways in which the content of an attitude may be causally relevant are distinguished.
Narrow Content
Authors: Stalnaker Robert C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe two‐dimensional modal framework deployed in Chs. and 6 is used to describe some puzzles about belief discussed in two papers by Brian Loar, and some theoretical ideas that he develops in response to those puzzles. I argue that Loar's notion of realization conditions, which he distinguishes from truth conditions, can be identified with my notion of a diagonal proposition. The main claim is that while the framework lends support to some of Loar's explanations of the examples, it does not yield a notion of narrow content.
Mental Content and Linguistic Form
Authors: Stalnaker Robert C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractContrasts possible‐worlds propositions with more fine‐grained structured propositions that build linguistic or quasi‐linguistic form into the contents of thought. The main argument is that the hypothesis that structured propositions are the objects of intentional mental states can be justified only if one's account of what mental states are, and how their content is determined, explains the role of the linguistic structure in distinguishing between different mental states. Several different ways in which linguistic structure might be involved in intentional mental states are distinguished. It is argued that neither an account of intentionality that presupposes a language of thought nor an account that makes linguistic expression essential to intentionality can be justified.
The Problem of Logical Omniscience, II
Authors: Stalnaker Robert C. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis second exploration of the problem of logical omniscience uses a simple abstract model of a community of knowers, developed by theoretical computer scientists, to help sharpen the problem. Knowers are modelled by processors in a distributed system, such as a computer network, and knowledge is defined in terms of the information about the system as a whole that is carried by the individual components. A number of different strategies for distinguishing between available and merely implicit knowledge in this setting are explored. No solution is defended; the aim is only to bring out the problem and put it in context.
Indeterminism and Antirealism
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

AbstractGives an insight into the richness of Davidson's contributions to the realism–anti‐realism debate, here with regards to the factuality of propositional‐attitude talk. Davidson argues that anti‐realism is best understood in epistemological terms, as a stance that commits ontologically in the light of what can be known. He concludes that, generally, one should not have anti‐realist attitudes as understood here towards propositional attitudes and, in particular, argues that one does not have to give up belief in first‐person authority, even if one accepts Quine's indeterminacy thesis.
The Second Person
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe author argues that language is necessarily a social phenomenon. The argument draws heavily on considerations advanced in favour of the thesis that meaning something requires understanding, and being understood by, a second person. Davidson denies that it is necessary for successful communication between X and Y that X speaks as Y; in substitution of this requirement, Davidson proposes a three‐way speaker–speaker–world relation he labels ‘triangulation’, which is not constituted by syntax but by common stimuli and responses.
The Emergence of Thought
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter is concerned with the cognitive development of the pre‐conceptual mental life of an infant through to the psychologically fully equipped mind of a child or adult. Davidson argues that known natural languages do not possess the linguistic potential to describe this development, mainly because our current vocabularies are impotent for the task at hand. Furthermore, Davidson argues, it is not clear what would satisfy the felt need for such a vocabulary.
A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge
Authors: Davidson Donald 
Published: October 2003

AbstractIn this chapter, a set of replies to Richard Rorty's then‐pragmatist criticisms, Davidson defends a coherence theory of truth that is not incompatible but in fact yields a correspondence theory. He argues that the common ground for the theories are considerations of meaning and the objective truth‐conditions that state when meanings are given. Coherence, then, is supposed to be a test for both truth and the judgement that objective truth‐conditions are justified, yielding what Davidson calls a ‘non‐confrontational’ correspondence and a realist stance in all departments involved.
The Fine and the Beautiful
Authors: Janaway Christopher 
Published: October 2003

AbstractConsiders the role Plato assigns to beauty, and whether for him beauty is connected with what we now call ‘aesthetic pleasure’. The Greek kalon, often translated as ‘beautiful’, can also be rendered as ‘fine’, and applies to a kind of value that is not exclusively aesthetic. A discussion of the dialogue Hippias Major reveals many of the connotations of kalon. Also looks at Plato's most famous treatment of the topic in Socrates’ speech in the Symposium. The high value Plato assigns to beauty should not be taken, however, to single out aesthetic value, nor should it be thought that he regards art as any specially privileged source of beauty.
The Fact of Moral Evil; and Free Will
Authors: Swinburne Richard 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Part 3 (chs. 7–11) of this book shows how God has to allow the possibility of bad things if he is to provide the good things described in Part 2. First, he has to allow creatures to freely choose what is bad. Although it is implausible to suppose that all possible creatures would suffer from ‘transworld depravity’, as Plantinga supposes, creatures do need bad desires (temptations) if they are to have a choice between good and bad.
The Evils of Sin and Agnosticism
Authors: Swinburne Richard 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
If humans are to have the opportunity to choose to love God, they must have the opportunity to choose to reject him—to sin. Agnosticism gives humans, the opportunity to choose freely to do good or evil without any awareness of God's presence making it too easy to do good. Death is not a bad state, but the end of a good state; and there are considerable advantages in human mortality. Though it is good that death should be followed by a life after death, it is good that this should not be too evident to humans.
Practical Reasoning
Authors: Harman Gilbert 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Intentions are distinct real psychological states, not mere constructs out of beliefs and desires. One intends to do something only if one believes one will do it. Positive intentions are to be distinguished from negative and conditional intentions. All intentions are self‐referential and are to be distinguished from beliefs by means of differences between theoretical reasoning, which directly modifies beliefs, and practical reasoning, which directly modifies intentions. One can sometimes adopt intrinsic desires at will and one may pursue a plan in order to give significance to earlier acts.
Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics
Authors: Harman Gilbert 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
A ‘naive view’ of morality says it is based on certain moral demands that everyone accepts, or at least has reasons to accept as demands on everyone, and on which all moral reasons depend. The naive view must be rejected because there are no substantive moral demands satisfying those conditions. Moral conventionalism or ‘morality as politics’ is the best replacement for the naive view. Other conceptions of morality retain less of the content of the naive view and tend toward unrealistic accounts of what morality requires. Extremely agent‐centred theories, as in certain forms of existentialism, practically abandon morality as a social enterprise, as do extremely critic‐centred theories, like certain forms of emotivism and Hare's theory, which are best seen as rejecting the moral ought in favour of the ought of evaluation.
Moral Agent and Impartial Spectator
Authors: Harman Gilbert 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
A standard objection to impartial spectator theories of morality is that they offer an aesthetic, critic‐centred conception of morality, and so cannot adequately account for moral motivation and the way morality presents itself to an agent. The issue arose in the eighteenth century for Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith. Smith provided an elegant account of why agents might be motivated to act in ways that impartial spectators would approve of, an account that is premised on an insightful critique of Hume's theory of sympathy.
Testimony
Authors: Goldman Alvin I. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractWhether a simple reporting practice produces positive changes in knowledge, or V‐value, depends on what reports a message sender sends, who actually receives them, what the receivers’ antecedent degrees of belief are, and how they revise their degrees of belief as a function of the reports. Does any belief‐revision practice have a general propensity to improve a hearer's degrees of knowledge? Assuming objective conditional probabilities, revising degrees of belief by Bayesian conditionalization yields (objectively) expected increases in degrees of knowledge (V‐value), as long as subjective likelihoods match objective likelihoods. This general theorem applies to the special case of reasoning from social communications. As a separate subtopic, theories of justification for testimonial belief are briefly reviewed.
Argumentation
Authors: Goldman Alvin I. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractArgumentation is a structured series of speech acts, and norms of good argumentation therefore differ from norms of good argument, such as deductive validity. Some norms of factual argumentation are “folk rules” of conversation (overlapping with Gricean principles), and are vindicated by their tendency to advance the cause of knowledge. Argumentative norms have the prospect of increasing knowledge not simply because conformity with them increases the probability of convincing the audience, but because conformity increases the chance of convincing the audience of truths. The veritistic approach explains why so‐called fallacies have that status, and is otherwise shown to be superior to alternative approaches to good argumentation.
Education
Authors: Goldman Alvin I. 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter tackles issues that lie at the intersection of epistemology and the philosophy of education. In keeping with the veritistic theme, it holds that a primary aim of education is the learning of truths, though this does not mean that teachers should always instruct students rather than allow them to learn independently. The ostensible conflict between multiculturalism and a truth‐oriented aim of education is more appearance than reality. That diverse cultural traditions have diverse values, experiences, and perspectives is itself a truth that needs to be learnt. The role of critical thinking versus trust in education is discussed in detail, given its overlap with the topic of testimony in epistemology.
The Integration Challenge
Authors: Peacocke Christopher 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe Integration Challenge is the task of reconciling a plausible account of what is involved in the truth of statements of a given kind with a credible account of how we can know those statements, when we do know them. Reconciliation in a given domain may be achieved by re‐conceiving the metaphysics of that domain, or its epistemology, or both. More radically, reconciliation may involve offering slimmed‐down truth conditions, or abandoning the notion of truth conditions altogether for the domain. Options that reject the possibility of integration are scepticism and the denial that an apparent domain involves any genuine subject matter at all. Illustrations of these strategies are given in the cases of necessity, the past, self‐knowledge, and freedom of the will.
The Unity Argument
Authors: Cassam Quassim 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
The Unity Argument states that the ability to think of one's perceptions as perceptions of objects in the weighty sense is necessary for unity of consciousness. A distinction is drawn between two versions of the Unity Argument. The first turns on the idea that unity of consciousness involves what P. F. Strawson calls ’transcendental’ self‐consciousness. The second turns on the idea that unity of consciousness involves ’personal’ self‐consciousness.
Originality and Value
Authors: Sibley Frank 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Raises the question of whether there is, as is often proposed, an intricate relation between the originality of a work of art and its aesthetic merit or value. Sibley follows Beardsley in asserting that originality, in a non-evaluative sense that concerns merely difference, has no bearing on value. He is explicit, however, about the need to distinguish between different uses of ‘original’ in order to reveal the ambiguities underlying the apparent disagreements of commentators with regard to the importance of originality.
Aesthetic Judgements: Pebbles, Faces, and Fields of Litter
Authors: Sibley Frank 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Summarises the argument of ch. 12 and applies its conclusion about adjectives in general to aesthetic adjectives like ‘beautiful’, ‘graceful’, ‘pretty’ or ‘elegant’. Sibley’s suggestion is that some aesthetic judgements are legitimately predicative, that is to say, some things can legitimately be judged, e.g. beautiful without ‘beautiful’ being used predicatively: one need not know what the things are because the nouns or concepts in question set no restrictive standards vis-à-vis beauty or beauty-giving properties. With nouns that do set standards incorporating notions of appropriateness, aesthetic judgements are attributive.
Against Ordinary Morality
Authors: Kagan Shelly 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter lays out the basic elements of ordinary morality, according to which there is only a limited requirement to promote the overall good. In particular, ‘constraints’ impose restrictions on permissible means of promoting the good, and ‘options’ free us of the obligation to promote the good – even within the limits set by those constraints. We are free to make large sacrifices for others, but typically are not required to do so. This is an intuitively attractive position, but there is more involved in defending a moral view than showing its intuitive appeal. The most natural defence of options appeals to the cost to the agent of promoting the good, but this appeal leads to unacceptable results unless we can first defend constraints as well, and many straightforward attempts to defend constraints are inadequate.
The Structure of Ordinary Morality
Authors: Kagan Shelly 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This chapter explores certain technical details concerning the characterization of ordinary morality. First, it argues that defenders of ordinary morality believe in the existence of a pro tanto reason to promote the good, a reason that always has weight, even if it can be overridden. Second, it offers an account of what conditions must be met for there to be a moral requirement to perform a given act. Third, it sketches in general terms what the defender of ordinary morality must show if both options and constraints are to be defended. Finally, it argues that this overall approach does not beg any questions against the defender of ordinary morality.