The so–called truthmaker solution to the problem Gettier is thought to have posed for the analysis of knowledge as justified true belief is to add a fourth condition, requiring that one’s evidence for one’s belief be the state of affairs that makes the belief true. Adrian Heathcote argues that the reason why one lacks knowledge in Russell’s case of the stopped clock is that, as in the classic Gettier–style cases, this condition is not satisfied. I argue that the proposed solution (...) fails, as it embodies a misunderstanding of what evidence is. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to argue that the relationship between intentions and meaning has been misconstrued by some influential recent theories of meaning. The theories I have in mind derive from earlier work by H. P. Grice, but have undergone extensive development and modification in the hands of Grice himself,, Stephen Schiffer, Jonathan Bennett and others. There have been, during much the same period, developments of Austin’s work on speech acts in which the same Gricean influence is unmistakable; (...) indeed, such influence has affected interpretations of Austin’s work itself, by such writers as Strawson, Searle, and Vendler. (shrink)

Ashley and Stack couple their claim that Hume holds a logical-construction theory with the remarkable suggestion that, so understood, his views yield "... at least a recognizable facsimile of the identity most of us believe in." The highly implausible suggestion that the non-philosopher regards his self as a logical construct should be enough to provide a motive for re-examining the arguments Ashley and Stack offer for their interpretation. These arguments make use of the distinction Hume develops between perfect and imperfect (...) identity and lead, first of all, to the conclusion that, contrary to some interpretations, Hume does not refuse the self all identity, but only perfect identity, that is, identity defined as the "idea of an object, that remains invariable and uninterrupted through a supposed variation of time." Finding the self to be not such an object, Hume says it cannot be said to have such identity. It can, however, be said to have imperfect identity, constituted by the "uninterrupted progress of thought" over a succession of objects, namely our perceptions. (shrink)

Many who agree with Kripke that ‘sloppy, colloquial speech’ often confuses use and mention would deem ‘ a is called N’ an example of such confusion, insisting on ‘ a is called "N"’ as the properly philosophical, un-sloppy, way of saying what is usually intended. Delia Graff Fara demurs – in my view, rightly. But the reasons she gives for doing so are, I think, themselves questionable and in any case do not go to the heart of the mistake on (...) which Kripke's condemnation of colloquial speech as sloppy rests. I discuss Fara's claims that what is behind the mistake is failing to appreciate the difference between "appellative" and "referring" uses of names and overlooking the fact that names sometimes function as predicates, finding fault with both. I then argue that the mistake stems from adherence to a widely accepted picture of the mechanics of mentioning and that it is that picture that is confused, not ordinary speakers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:45. HUME'S DIFFICULTIES WITH THE SELF One of the more baffling and apparently inconclusive parts of the Treatise is the section on personal identity. Hume himself, when he takes a backward glance at it in those notorious passages in the Appendix, singles it out as representing an unresolved problem in his philosophy. It is a matter of fairly general agreement among recent writers on the subject that one of (...) Hume's chief difficulties -- though not one he recognizes — is his assigning to the mind (or, sometimes, the "imagination") certain activities, which he claims are instrumental in generating belief in, and awareness of, the very mind or self whose activities they are said to be. Hume talks about customs and habits of the mind and the expectations arising out of these, of the acts of observing, noticing and associating, of believing, of feigning, and so on, acts which the mind is required to perform in order for us to be able to explain along acceptable empiricist lines how the idea of an abiding self arises. Such talk, it seems, already presupposes the existence of a self and our possession of the idea thereof. So does, of course, the talk involved in Hume's accounts of the external world and of causality. Insofar as these involve his theory of belief, they, too, seem to presuppose a self which is more than a fiction, more than a product of the imagination. Yet the account he gives of the self seems to yield precisely a fiction in just the sense in which our ideas of the external world and of its causal connections are ideas of fictions. Quite generally, then, if Hume's theory of belief presupposes a continually existing self, what sense can be made of his arguments to show that our belief in such a self is the belief in a fiction? I want to argue that Hume can be defended against such criticisms and that the appearance of circularity here is just that: an appearance. It results largely from 46. two features of the Treatise. The first is that since at different points in the Treatise Hume is obviously concerned with different problems, his language reflects this. It is for this reason only that at times he talks in ways which make it seem that a continually existing self is being presupposed. The second feature responsible for the appearance of circularity is that while Hume draws a distinction between "perfect" and 'imperfect" identity, he fails to make that distinction explicit enough, so that one may easily miss the all-important point that it is only the former sort of identity which is being denied of the self, and the latter sort which is being explained and accounted for along Humean empiricist lines. If we keep this in mind, we shall see that the references in his account of the identity of the self to the activities of the self are not questionbegging, and that the attribution of these activities to the very same "fiction" whose existence is being accounted for carries no absurdity. II One way to bring out the differences between the kind of self which is alleged to be presupposed by Hume's account and that which, as I shall argue, is really involved in that account, is to put pressure on Hume's doctrine of 2 association. It is frequently urged by commentators that the notion of association which is so fundamental for much of Hume's philosophy is ambiguous, showing as it does the influence of two very different models, deriving from Hutcheson and Newton respectively. On the first model, a continuing self is presupposed as the agent of the various sorts of associative acts he invokes; on the second it is the items associated (perceptions) which are themselves the entities doing the associating. Clearly, the question whether Hume's theory of belief involves the assumption that a continuing self exists (harmless in the uses of that 47. theory in other contexts, but possibly fatal in its use in a theory of personal identity) may be seen to resolve into the question, which model of association is fundamental for Hume? It is, of course, an undeniable... (shrink)

This paper criticizes Kent Wilson's (`Circular Arguments', 1988) arguments against the analysis of the fallacy of begging the question in epistemic terms and against the division of the fallacy into equivalence and dependency types. It is argued that Wilson does not succeed in showing that the epistemic attitude to the fallacy analysis should be given up. Further, it is argued that Wilson's arguments against the division of the fallacy into two types can be overcome by altering the accounts he criticizes (...) (David Sanford (1971, 1984, 1988) and John Biro (1977, 1984)): fallacy analysis should concentrate on externalized arguments, but this does not mean that either the epistemic attitude or the dependency conception should be given up. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 560-561 [Access article in PDF] Olli Koistinen and John Biro, editors. Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 255. Cloth, $49.95. Writing in the mid-seventeenth century, Spinoza tried to provide conceptual foundations for the newly developing "natural philosophy" of his day. His monism, naturalism, and theory of mind are still intriguing today, but they are (...) notoriously difficult to understand. There is little interpretive consensus with regard to even the most basic concepts and claims. In Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes the diversity of interpretive perspective is vividly on display.All of the eleven essays in this collection are published here for the first time. They cover a broad range of topics and, taken together, they move us forward in our understanding of Spinoza's basic doctrines. Most of the essays are carefully argued discussions of clearly defined issues of interpretation. They address matters that are central to the system and central to our understanding of the system—monism, causation, individuation, conatus.The editors' Introduction claims that Jonathan Bennett's 1986 work set a new standard of Spinoza scholarship—a standard that the essays in this volume seek to measure up to. Most (not all) of these essays do indeed come close to Bennett's commendable level of argumentative clarity and rigor. And here, as in Bennett's work, the emphasis is mostly systematic and argumentative, not historical.The collection opens with a very good essay by Michael Della Rocca entitled "Spinoza's Substance Monism." This essay applies to the thorny issue of substance monism the same argumentative strategy that Della Rocca has elsewhere applied to monism regarding individual modes—i.e., to the claim that an extended mode and the idea of that mode are identical. The argument turns on the complete conceptual independence of the attributes, and Della Rocca makes a strong case for the centrality of that somewhat puzzling doctrine. John Carriero's contribution ("Monism in Spinoza") continues the focus on monism, but from a different perspective. Carriero asks, "Why does Spinoza hold that finite... bodies [End Page 560] are not substances?" (47). Rejecting two traditional responses he provides a plausible answer to this good question by focusing on an early exchange of letters between Spinoza and Oldenburg and upon Spinoza's rethinking of Descartes's conception of extension.One of the most interesting essays is Don Garrett's interpretive discussion of Spinoza's derivation of the conatus doctrine at Ethics3p4-3p6 ("Spinoza's Conatus Argument"). Commentators have identified various putative fallacies in the argument that Spinoza offers for this doctrine—chiefly fallacies of equivocation. Garrett develops an interesting and plausible notion of "inherence" that casts light on a number of central metaphysical relations and permits a defensible reading of the conatus argument. For the serious Spinoza scholar, this one essay is worth the price of the volume.Olli Koistinen's "Causation in Spinoza" considers Spinoza's solution to the difficulty of causal interaction between substances—a glaring problem in Descartes that provoked glaringly problematic solutions from Malebranche and Leibniz. Richard Manning's essay addresses a controversial point in Jonathan Bennett's interpretation. The issue is whether, in Spinoza's system, mental content can have causal significance—a point closely related to the important issue of teleological explanation of human behavior. Manning supports a kind of "thoughtful teleology," making a convincing case for the causal efficacy of mental content.On the whole the authors in this volume restrict their discussion of secondary literature to the works of fellow Anglophones. One finds occasional mention of Gueroult, but the Continental literature on Spinoza is mostly ignored. There are two notable exceptions to this rule. Steven Barbone ("What Counts as an Individual for Spinoza?") discusses the thorny issue of modal individuation in Spinoza's system, arguing against Matheron's 1969 claim that for Spinoza the state is an individual. Emphasizing the centrality of power, Barbone draws important (liberal) political conclusions from his analysis of individuation. Mark Kulstad ("Leibniz, Spinoza and Tschirnhaus: Metaphysics à Trois, 1675-1676") fruitfully uses recent Continental work on... (shrink)

Objectives: To foster the development of a privacy-protective, sustainable cross-border information system in the framework of a European public health project. Materials and methods: A targeted privacy impact assessment was implemented to identify the best architecture for a European information system for diabetes directly tapping into clinical registries. Four steps were used to provide input to software designers and developers: a structured literature search, analysis of data flow scenarios or options, creation of an ad hoc questionnaire and conduction of a (...) Delphi procedure. Results: The literature search identified a core set of relevant papers on privacy. Technicians envisaged three candidate system architectures, with associated data flows, to source an information flow questionnaire that was submitted to the Delphi panel for the selection of the best architecture. A detailed scheme envisaging an “aggregation by group of patients” was finally chosen, based upon the exchange of finely tuned summary tables. Conclusions: Public health information systems should be carefully engineered only after a clear strategy for privacy protection has been planned, to avoid breaching current regulations and future concerns and to optimise the development of statistical routines. The BIRO project delivers a specific method of privacy impact assessment that can be conveniently used in similar situations across Europe. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Ned Block argues that the higher-order (HO) approach to explaining consciousness is ‘defunct’ because a prominent objection (the ‘misrepresentation objection’) exposes the view as ‘incoherent’. What’s more, a response to this objection that I’ve offered elsewhere (Weisberg 2010) fails because it ‘amounts to abusing the notion of what-it’s-like-ness’ (xxx).1 In this response, I wish to plead guilty as charged. Indeed, I will continue herein to abuse Block’s notion of what-it’s-like-ness. After doing so, I will argue that the HO approach accounts (...) for the sense of what-it’s-like-ness that matters in a theory of consciousness. I will also argue that the only incoherence present in the HO theory is that generated by embracing Block’s controversial notion of what-it’s-like-ness, something no theorist of any stripe ought to do. Block is famous for (among other things) having introduced the notion of ‘phenomenal consciousness’ into contemporary philosophy of mind (Block 1995). This term is widely employed in the philosophical literature and it even appears in the empirical literature. But wide-speared usage has brought about divergent interpretations of the term. We can distinguish a ‘moderate’ and a ‘zealous’ reading of ‘phenomenal consciousness’. On the moderate reading, ‘phenomenal consciousness’ just means ‘experience’. Many people have embraced this sense of the term and use it to roughly pick out conscious experience involving sensory quality (states like conscious visual experiences or conscious pains, for example).2 On the zealous reading, however, phenomenal consciousness is held to be ‘distinct from any cognitive, intentional, or functional property’ (Block 1995: 234). That is, any explanation of phenomenal consciousness in exclusively cognitive, intentional, or functional terms will fail to capture, without remainder, what is really distinctive about phenomenal consciousness. Block, of course, is fully clear about embracing the zealous reading; indeed, his initial introduction of the notion is in those terms. The same ambiguity occurs with the much-used (and abused) idea of ‘what-it’s-like-ness’.. (shrink)

In Biro and Siegel we argued that a theory of argumentation mustfully engage the normativity of judgments about arguments, and we developedsuch a theory. In this paper we further develop and defend our theory.

Two experiments investigated whether infants represent goal‐directed actions of others in a way that allows them to draw inferences to unobserved states of affairs (such as unseen goal states or occluded obstacles). We measured looking times to assess violation of infants' expectations upon perceiving either a change in the actions of computer‐animated figures or in the context of such actions. The first experiment tested whether infants would attribute a goal to an action that they had not seen completed. The second (...) experiment tested whether infants would infer from an observed action the presence of an occluded object that functions as an obstacle. The looking time patterns of 12‐month‐olds indicated that they were able to make both types of inferences, while 9‐month‐olds failed in both tasks. These results demonstrate that, by the end of the first year of life, infants use the principle of rational action not only for the interpretation and prediction of goal‐directed actions, but also for making productive inferences about unseen aspects of their context. We discuss the underlying mechanisms that may be involved in the developmental change from 9 to 12 months of age in the ability to infer hypothetical (unseen) states of affairs in teleological action representations. (shrink)

Telling a patient that the outcome of his illness is not good, or even hopeless, requires sensitivity and the ability to communicate with him in the setting of a hospital which is an unnatural environment divorced from family and friends. It is a task which must be taught and learned by doctors and nurses.

In this essay we develop a theory of discourse reports. The theory provides a common set of structural and interpretive principles that together account for the truth conditions of direct, indirect and mixed reports. A distinguishing feature of our view is the assumption that the complement sentence of a report divides exclusively and exhaustively into regions that characterize the content of the reported utterance and regions that characterize the form of the utterance. This assumption implies that mixed reports do not (...) imply full direct or indirect reports. We discuss a classical David‐sonian proposal by Herman Cappelen and Ernest Lepore which conflicts with our theory on this latter point and show that it is unable to account for many of the phenomena we discuss. (shrink)

In this paper we defend a particular version of the epistemic approach to argumentation. We advance some general considerations in favor of the approach and then examine the ways in which different versions of it play out with respect to the theory of fallacies, which we see as central to an understanding of argumentation. Epistemic theories divide into objective and subjective versions. We argue in favor of the objective version, showing that it provides a better account than its subjectivist rival (...) of the central fallacy of begging the question. We suggest that the strengths of the objective epistemic theory of fallacies provide support for the epistemic approach to argumentation more generally. (shrink)

Garssen and van Laar in effect concede our main criticism of the pragma-dialectical approach. The criticism is that the conclusions of arguments can be ‘P-D reasonable’ yet patently unreasonable, epistemically speaking. The concession consists in the claim that the theory “remains restricted to the investigation of standpoints in the light of particular sets of starting points” which are “up to individual disputants to create” and the admission that all the relevant terms of normative appraisal have been redefined. We also discuss (...) their criticisms of the epistemic account of argumentation and argument evaluation and raise some new questions about the approach they defend. (shrink)

The existential analysis -- The death of dasein -- The timeliness of dasein -- The derivation of time -- The time of being.

The achievements of the textile industry in Roman Britain are often underestimated as a result of the meagreness of our available evidence. The Edict on maximum prices issued by Diocletian in A.D. 301 shows that British capes commanded high prices on the markets of the Empire, and that in the late third century A.D. British rugs were the best in the world. In view of the competition from the traditional centres of rug manufacture in the East, this is an astonishing (...) achievement. (shrink)

The received translation and interpretation of many of the technical terms current in the textile industry of the Roman Empire are inaccurate, because lexicographers have either fought shy of being precise, or have thought that they recognized in the ancient world technical processes which originated at a much later date. The evidence is often equivocal or insufficient, but may still yield details that have been overlooked. The textile expression scutulatus, to take an example, deserves more attention than Blümner has devoted (...) to it. When it refers to the appearance of a garment, Lewis and Short, s.v. scutulatus, translate ‘diamond or lozenge-shaped, checkered’. It seems worth while to attempt a more precise translation, and, if possible, to estimate the significance in context of the goods so designated. (shrink)

Living out of silence, out of a fully functioning, lovingly attentive mind, and not just out of thought, out of a partially functioning mind, is requisite for depth or profundity in living or relating. A fully attentive, truly silent or meditative mind sees that there is real dualism of time and the timeless and that time and the timeless each has its own unique value. The timeless, or real silence, that which alone can make for depth in one's living and (...) relating, can be there only when, in one's awareness, time and all that is related to time, have come to an end. An examination of a wide variety of statements made by writers, both past and present, shows that these understandings are seldom there in contemporary writings, just as they were not there in writings that have come down to us from the past. 'Living beyond the One and the Many' invites readers to consider the possibility that what is presented in it can bring deep meaning to one's way of living in the world"--Publisher's description, back cover. (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

This article presents an overview for clinician investigators on the concepts of decision-making capacity and vulnerability as related to human subjects research. Tools for capacity assessment and unacknowledged sources of vulnerability are discussed, and the practical gaps in current informed consent requirements related to impaired capacity and potential vulnerability are described. Options are suggested for research discussions when full regulatory consent is not possible and an exception from informed consent does not apply.

Richard Feldman’s well-known principle about disagreement and evidence – usually encapsulated in the slogan, ‘evidence of evidence is evidence’, (EEE) – invites the question, what should a rational believer do when faced by such evidence, especially when the disagreement is with an epistemic peer? The question has been the subject of much controversy. However, it has been recently suggested both that the principle is subject to counterexamples and that it is trivial. If either is the case, the question of what (...) to do in the face of evidence of evi- dence becomes less pressing. We contend that even if one or the other of these suggestions is right about (EEE) as a general principle about evidence, they leave it untouched insofar as it plays a role in the debates about the rational way to respond to disagreement and, in particular, to disagreement by an epistemic peer. This is because in such cases the evidence about which one has evidence and which is supposed to provide evidence against one's belief is the mere fact of someone’s disagreeing, rather than something that is related to the content of the proposition about which the parties disagree. We go on to argue that, so understood, the principle is false. (shrink)

Jeffrey Collins’ new book aims to presents Locke’s views on religious toleration in the light of Thomas Hobbes’ political philosophy. At first blush, Hobbes seems an unusual choice as a point of co...