This volume brings together some of the best articles on Descartes published in the last fifty years. Edited by the renowned Descartes specialist John Cottingham, the selection covers the full range of Descartes's thought, including chapters on the central issues in Cartesian metaphysics, the relationship between mind and body, human nature and the passions, and the structure of scientific explanation.

A completely new translation of the works of Descartes is intended to replace the Haldane and Ross edition, first published in 1911. All material from that edition is translated here, with a number of other texts crucial for understanding Cartesian philosophy.

To confront the philosophical system of Rene Descartes is to contemplate a magnificently laid out map of human cognitive endeavour. In following Descartes arguments, the reader is drawn into some of the most fundamental and challenging issues in all of philosophy. In this dictionary, John Cottingham presents an alphabetied guide to this most stimulating and widely-studied of philosophers. He examines the key concepts and ideas in Cartesian thought and places them in the context both of the seventeenth-century intellectual climate (...) and of subsequent interpretation. The entries range over a wide variety of areas including cosmology, physics, theology, psychology and ethics. The book is designed to appeal to the newcomer to Descartes, whether student or general reader, while also providing detailed critical comment and precise textual references for the more advanced reader. Also included are a general introduction describing Descartes' life and works, and bibliographic guide to the Cartesian texts and the mass of interpretative literature on Descartes. (shrink)

The Spiritual Dimension offers a new model for the philosophy of religion, bringing together emotional and intellectual aspects of our human experience, and embracing practical as well as theoretical concerns. It shows how a religious worldview is best understood not as an isolated set of doctrines, but as intimately related to spiritual praxis and to the search for self-understanding and moral growth. It argues that the religious quest requires a certain emotional openness, but can be pursued without sacrificing our philosophical (...) integrity. Touching on many important debates in contemporary philosophy and theology, but accessible to general readers, The Spiritual Dimension covers a range of central topics in the philosophy of religion, including scientific cosmology and the problem of evil; ethical theory and the objectivity of goodness; psychoanalytic thought, self-discovery and virtue; the multi-layered nature of religious discourse; and the relation between faith and evidence. (shrink)

Can philosophy enable us to lead better lives through a systematic understanding of our human nature? John Cottingham's thought-provoking study examines three major philosophical approaches to this problem. Starting with the attempts of Classical philosophers to cope with the recalcitrant forces of the passions, he moves on to examine the moral psychology of Descartes, and concludes by analyzing the insights of modern psychoanalytic theory into the human predicament. His study provides a fresh and challenging perspective on moral philosophy and (...) psychology for students and specialists alike. (shrink)

For each positive n , two alternative axiomatizations of the theory of strings over n alphabetic characters are presented. One class of axiomatizations derives from Tarski's system of the Wahrheitsbegriff and uses the n characters and concatenation as primitives. The other class involves using n character-prefixing operators as primitives and derives from Hermes' Semiotik. All underlying logics are second order. It is shown that, for each n, the two theories are definitionally equivalent [or synonymous in the sense of deBouvere]. It (...) is further shown that each member of one class is synonymous with each member of the other class; thus that all of the theories are definitionally equivalent with each other and with Peano arithmetic. Categoricity of Peano arithmetic then implies categoricity of each of the above theories. (shrink)

The idea that technologies can change moral beliefs and practices is an old one. But how, exactly, does this happen? This paper builds on an emerging field of inquiry by developing a synoptic taxonomy of the mechanisms of techno-moral change. It argues that technology affects moral beliefs and practices in three main domains: decisional (how we make morally loaded decisions), relational (how we relate to others) and perceptual (how we perceive situations). It argues that across these three domains there are (...) six primary mechanisms of techno-moral change: (i) adding options; (ii) changing decision-making costs; (iii) enabling new relationships; (iv) changing the burdens and expectations within relationships; (v) changing the balance of power in relationships; and (vi) changing perception (information, mental models and metaphors). The paper also discusses the layered, interactive and second-order effects of these mechanisms. (shrink)

Can philosophy enable us to lead better lives through a systematic understanding of our human nature? John Cottingham's thought-provoking 1998 study examines the contrasting approaches to this problem found in three major phases of Western philosophy. Starting with the attempts of Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics and Epicureans to cope with the recalcitrant forces of the passions, he moves on to examine the fascinating and hitherto little-studied moral psychology of Descartes, and his effort to integrate the physical and emotional (...) aspects of our humanity into a rational blueprint for fulfilment. He concludes by analysing the insights of modern psychoanalytic theory into the human predicament, arguing that philosophy neglects them at its peril if it hopes to come to terms with the complex relationship between reason and the emotions. Lucid in exposition and unusually wide-ranging in scope, Philosophy and the Good Life provides a challenging perspective on moral philosophy and psychology for students and specialists alike. (shrink)

No mathematical background is necessary to appreciate this classic of probability theory, which remains unsurpassed in its clarity, readability, and sheer charm. Its author, British logician John Venn (1834-1923), popularized the famous Venn Diagrams that are commonly used in teaching elementary mathematics.

Since the time of Aristotle's students, interpreters have considered Prior Analytics to be a treatise about deductive reasoning, more generally, about methods of determining the validity and invalidity of premise-conclusion arguments. People studied Prior Analytics in order to learn more about deductive reasoning and to improve their own reasoning skills. These interpreters understood Aristotle to be focusing on two epistemic processes: first, the process of establishing knowledge that a conclusion follows necessarily from a set of premises (that is, on the (...) epistemic process of extracting information implicit in explicitly given information) and, second, the process of establishing knowledge that a conclusion does not follow. Despite the overwhelming tendency to interpret the syllogistic as formal epistemology, it was not until the early 1970s that it occurred to anyone to think that Aristotle may have developed a theory of deductive reasoning with a well worked-out system of deductions comparable in rigor and precision with systems such as propositional logic or equational logic familiar from mathematical logic. When modern logicians in the 1920s and 1930s first turned their attention to the problem of understanding Aristotle's contribution to logic in modern terms, they were guided both by the Frege-Russell conception of logic as formal ontology and at the same time by a desire to protect Aristotle from possible charges of psychologism. They thought they saw Aristotle applying the informal axiomatic method to formal ontology, not as making the first steps into formal epistemology. They did not notice Aristotle's description of deductive reasoning. Ironically, the formal axiomatic method (in which one explicitly presents not merely the substantive axioms but also the deductive processes used to derive theorems from the axioms) is incipient in Aristotle's presentation. Partly in opposition to the axiomatic, ontically-oriented approach to Aristotle's logic and partly as a result of attempting to increase the degree of fit between interpretation and text, logicians in the 1970s working independently came to remarkably similar conclusions to the effect that Aristotle indeed had produced the first system of formal deductions. They concluded that Aristotle had analyzed the process of deduction and that his achievement included a semantically complete system of natural deductions including both direct and indirect deductions. Where the interpretations of the 1920s and 1930s attribute to Aristotle a system of propositions organized deductively, the interpretations of the 1970s attribute to Aristotle a system of deductions, or extended deductive discourses, organized epistemically. The logicians of the 1920s and 1930s take Aristotle to be deducing laws of logic from axiomatic origins; the logicians of the 1970s take Aristotle to be describing the process of deduction and in particular to be describing deductions themselves, both those deductions that are proofs based on axiomatic premises and those deductions that, though deductively cogent, do not establish the truth of the conclusion but only that the conclusion is implied by the premise-set. Thus, two very different and opposed interpretations had emerged, interestingly both products of modern logicians equipped with the theoretical apparatus of mathematical logic. The issue at stake between these two interpretations is the historical question of Aristotle's place in the history of logic and of his orientation in philosophy of logic. This paper affirms Aristotle's place as the founder of logic taken as formal epistemology, including the study of deductive reasoning. A by-product of this study of Aristotle's accomplishments in logic is a clarification of a distinction implicit in discourses among logicians--that between logic as formal ontology and logic as formal epistemology. (shrink)

The syllogistic figures and moods can be taken to be argument schemata as can the rules of the Stoic propositional logic. Sentence schemata have been used in axiomatizations of logic only since the landmark 1927 von Neumann paper [31]. Modern philosophers know the role of schemata in explications of the semantic conception of truth through Tarski’s 1933 Convention T [42]. Mathematical logicians recognize the role of schemata in first-order number theory where Peano’s second-order Induction Axiom is approximated by Herbrand’s Induction-Axiom (...) Schema [23]. Similarly, in first-order set theory, Zermelo’s second-order Separation Axiom is approximated by Fraenkel’s first-order Separation Schema [17]. In some of several closely related senses, a schema is a complex system having multiple components one of which is a template-text or scheme-template, a syntactic string composed of one or more “blanks” and also possibly significant words and/or symbols. In accordance with a side condition the template-text of a schema is used as a “template” to specify a multitude, often infinite, of linguistic expressions such as phrases, sentences, or argument-texts, called instances of the schema. The side condition is a second component. The collection of instances may but need not be regarded as a third component. The instances are almost always considered to come from a previously identified language (whether formal or natural), which is often considered to be another component. This article reviews the often-conflicting uses of the expressions ‘schema’ and ‘scheme’ in the literature of logic. It discusses the different definitions presupposed by those uses. And it examines the ontological and epistemic presuppositions circumvented or mooted by the use of schemata, as well as the ontological and epistemic presuppositions engendered by their use. In short, this paper is an introduction to the history and philosophy of schemata. (shrink)

For the last twenty years John Corvino has traversed the US responding to moral and religious arguments against same-sex relationships. In this timely book, he shares that experience-both by addressing the standard objections and by offering insight into the culture wars more generally. In the process, he makes a fresh case for moral engagement, forcefully rejecting the idea that morality is a 'private matter'.

Chapin reviewed this 1972 ZEITSCHRIFT paper that proves the completeness theorem for the logic of variable-binding-term operators created by Corcoran and his student John Herring in the 1971 LOGIQUE ET ANALYSE paper in which the theorem was conjectured. This leveraging proof extends completeness of ordinary first-order logic to the extension with vbtos. Newton da Costa independently proved the same theorem about the same time using a Henkin-type proof. This 1972 paper builds on the 1971 “Notes on a Semantic Analysis (...) of Variable Binding Term Operators” (Co-author John Herring), Logique et Analyse 55, 646–57. MR0307874 (46 #6989). A variable binding term operator (vbto) is a non-logical constant, say v, which combines with a variable y and a formula F containing y free to form a term (vy:F) whose free variables are exact ly those of F, excluding y. Kalish-Montague 1964 proposed using vbtos to formalize definite descriptions “the x: x+x=2”, set abstracts {x: F}, minimization in recursive function theory “the least x: x+x>2”, etc. However, they gave no semantics for vbtos. Hatcher 1968 gave a semantics but one that has flaws described in the 1971 paper and admitted by Hatcher. In 1971 we give a correct semantic analysis of vbtos. We also give axioms for using them in deductions. And we conjecture strong completeness for the deductions with respect to the semantics. The conjecture, proved in this paper with Hatcher’s help, was proved independently about the same time by Newton da Costa. (shrink)

Thirteen meanings of 'implication' are described and compared. Among them are relations that have been called: logical implication, material implication,deductive implication, formal implication, enthymemic implication, and factual implication. In a given context, implication is the homogeneous two-place relation expressed by the relation verb 'implies'. For heuristic and expository reasons this article skirts many crucial issues including use-mention, the nature of the entities that imply and are implied, and the processes by which knowledge of these relations are achieved. This paper is (...) better thought of as an early stage of a dialogue than as a definitive treatise. (shrink)

This collection of fourteen essays, all published here for the first time, offers a stimulating reassessment of the central theme of Descartes's metaphysics. The first section examines Descartes's place in the history of philosophy and his unique influence in shaping the nature of philosophical enquiry. The central sections of the book cover the Cartesian doctrine of substance, the place of God in Descartes's philosophy, and his views on the relationship between reason and will. A concluding section examines the problematice role (...) of sensory awaremess om Descartes's account of our knowledge of ourselves and the world around us, and the implication of that account for an understanding of our nature as human beings. The volume is edited by John Cottingham, a leading authority on Descartes, whose introduction provides a clear overview of the issues addressed. The distinguished international team of contributors includes some of the best-known names in Descartes scholarship. (shrink)

This study concerns logical systems considered as theories. By searching for the problems which the traditionally given systems may reasonably be intended to solve, we clarify the rationales for the adequacy criteria commonly applied to logical systems. From this point of view there appear to be three basic types of logical systems: those concerned with logical truth; those concerned with logical truth and with logical consequence; and those concerned with deduction per se as well as with logical truth and logical (...) consequence. Adequacy criteria for systems of the first two types include: effectiveness, soundness, completeness, Post completeness, "strong soundness" and strong completeness. Consideration of a logical system as a theory of deduction leads us to attempt to formulate two adequacy criteria for systems of proofs. The first deals with the concept of rigor or "gaplessness" in proofs. The second is a completeness condition for a system of proofs. An historical note at the end of the paper suggests a remarkable parallel between the above hierarchy of systems and the actual historical development of this area of logic. (shrink)

It is morally impermissible for parents, educators, and others to initiate children into religious belief systems. That is the provocative conclusion of John Tillson’s Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence—the book which is the focus of the present symposium. This introduction briefly summarizes the book’s arguments together with the criticisms levelled against them. The symposium includes critiques by Matthew Clayton, Anca Gheaus, Michael Hand, David Lewin, and Ruth Wareham. Clayton and Wareham propose alternative bases for prohibiting religious initiation, (...) whilst Hand, Lewin, and Gheaus propose conditions under which religious initiation may be permissible. The symposium concludes with a rejoinder by Tillson. (shrink)

These two 1985 volumes provide a translation of the philosophical works of Descartes, based on the best available Latin and French texts. They are intended to replace the only reasonably comprehensive selection of his works in English, by Haldane and Ross, first published in 1911. All the works included in that edition are translated here, together with a number of additional texts crucial for an understanding of Cartesian philosophy, including important material from Descartes' scientific writings. The result should meet the (...) widespread demand for an accurate and authoritative edition of Descartes' philosophical writings in clear and readable modern English. (shrink)

A small industry has grown up around these works - Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens - complaining not just about their theological illiteracy but also about their ...

This paper discusses the history of the confusion and controversies over whether the definition of consequence presented in the 11-page 1936 Tarski consequence-definition paper is based on a monistic fixed-universe framework?like Begriffsschrift and Principia Mathematica. Monistic fixed-universe frameworks, common in pre-WWII logic, keep the range of the individual variables fixed as the class of all individuals. The contrary alternative is that the definition is predicated on a pluralistic multiple-universe framework?like the 1931 Gödel incompleteness paper. A pluralistic multiple-universe framework recognizes multiple (...) universes of discourse serving as different ranges of the individual variables in different interpretations?as in post-WWII model theory. In the early 1960s, many logicians?mistakenly, as we show?held the ?contrary alternative? that Tarski 1936 had already adopted a Gödel-type, pluralistic, multiple-universe framework. We explain that Tarski had not yet shifted out of the monistic, Frege?Russell, fixed-universe paradigm. We further argue that between his Principia-influenced pre-WWII Warsaw period and his model-theoretic post-WWII Berkeley period, Tarski's philosophy underwent many other radical changes. (shrink)

The Meditations, one of the key texts of Western philosophy, is the most widely studied of all Descartes' writings. This authoritative translation by John Cottingham, taken from the much acclaimed three-volume Cambridge edition of the Philosophical Writings of Descartes, is based upon the best available texts and presents Descartes' central metaphysical writings in clear, readable modern English. As well as the complete text of the Meditations, the reader will find a thematic abridgement of the Objections and Replies containing Descartes' (...) replies to his critics. These extracts, specially selected for the present volume, indicate the main philosophical difficulties which occurred to Descartes' contemporaries and show how Descartes developed and clarified his arguments in response. This edition contains a new comprehensive introduction to Descartes' philosophy by John Cottingham and the classic introductory essay on the Meditations by Bernard Williams. (shrink)

In 1984, John W. Yolton published Perceptual Acquaintance from Descartes to Reid. His most recent book builds on that seminal work and greatly extends its relevance to issues in current philosophical debate. Perception and Reality examines the theories of perception implicit in the work of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers which centered on the question: How is knowledge of the body possible? That question raises issues of mind-body relation, the way that mentality links with physicality, and the nature of the (...) known world. In contrast to commonsense realism, which suggests that the world is as it appears to be, a more complex theory developed throughout this period. Yolton traces its evolution from Descartes to Kant, via Arnauld, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Yolton explains that the new theory postulated two interactive relations between perceivers and the physical world, one physical and causal, the other cognitive. An understanding of this double relation is important for an accurate construction of the history of philosophy. It is also important for contemporary thought because it suggests a way to account for representation (cognitivity) and realism at the same time. (shrink)

“Second-order Logic” in Anderson, C.A. and Zeleny, M., Eds. Logic, Meaning, and Computation: Essays in Memory of Alonzo Church. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001. Pp. 61–76. -/- Abstract. This expository article focuses on the fundamental differences between second- order logic and first-order logic. It is written entirely in ordinary English without logical symbols. It employs second-order propositions and second-order reasoning in a natural way to illustrate the fact that second-order logic is actually a familiar part of our traditional intuitive logical framework and (...) that it is not an artificial formalism created by specialists for technical purposes. To illustrate some of the main relationships between second-order logic and first-order logic, this paper introduces basic logic, a kind of zero-order logic, which is more rudimentary than first-order and which is transcended by first-order in the same way that first-order is transcended by second-order. The heuristic effectiveness and the historical importance of second-order logic are reviewed in the context of the contemporary debate over the legitimacy of second-order logic. Rejection of second-order logic is viewed as radical: an incipient paradigm shift involving radical repudiation of a part of our scientific tradition, a tradition that is defended by classical logicians. But it is also viewed as reactionary: as being analogous to the reactionary repudiation of symbolic logic by supporters of “Aristotelian” traditional logic. But even if “genuine” logic comes to be regarded as excluding second-order reasoning, which seems less likely today than fifty years ago, its effectiveness as a heuristic instrument will remain and its importance for understanding the history of logic and mathematics will not be diminished. Second-order logic may someday be gone, but it will never be forgotten. Technical formalisms have been avoided entirely in an effort to reach a wide audience, but every effort has been made to limit the inevitable sacrifice of rigor. People who do not know second-order logic cannot understand the modern debate over its legitimacy and they are cut-off from the heuristic advantages of second-order logic. And, what may be worse, they are cut-off from an understanding of the history of logic and thus are constrained to have distorted views of the nature of the subject. As Aristotle first said, we do not understand a discipline until we have seen its development. It is a truism that a person's conceptions of what a discipline is and of what it can become are predicated on their conception of what it has been. (shrink)

This interesting and imaginative monograph is based on the author’s PhD dissertation supervised by Saul Kripke. It is dedicated to Timothy Smiley, whose interpretation of PRIOR ANALYTICS informs its approach. As suggested by its title, this short work demonstrates conclusively that Aristotle’s syllogistic is a suitable vehicle for fruitful discussion of contemporary issues in logical theory. Aristotle’s syllogistic is represented by Corcoran’s 1972 reconstruction. The review studies Lear’s treatment of Aristotle’s logic, his appreciation of the Corcoran-Smiley paradigm, and his understanding (...) of modern logical theory. In the process Corcoran and Scanlan present new, previously unpublished results. Corcoran regards this review as an important contribution to contemporary study of PRIOR ANALYTICS: both the book and the review deserve to be better known. (shrink)

Volumes I and II provide a completely new translation of the philosophical works of Descartes, based on the best available Latin and French texts. Volume III contains 207 of Descartes' letters, over half of which have not been translated into English before. It incorporates, in its entirety, Anthony Kenny's celebrated translation of selected philosophical letters, first published in 1970. In conjunction with Volumes I and II it is designed to meet the widespread demand for a comprehensive, accurate and authoritative edition (...) of Descartes' philosophical writings in clear and readable modern English. (shrink)

Belief and its benefits -- Belief, reason, goodness -- Belief and the unknown -- Obstacles to belief -- Belief and meaning -- Learning to believe -- Believing and living.

The five English words—sentence, proposition, judgment, statement, and fact—are central to coherent discussion in logic. However, each is ambiguous in that logicians use each with multiple normal meanings. Several of their meanings are vague in the sense of admitting borderline cases. In the course of displaying and describing the phenomena discussed using these words, this paper juxtaposes, distinguishes, and analyzes several senses of these and related words, focusing on a constellation of recommended senses. One of the purposes of this paper (...) is to demonstrate that ordinary English properly used has the resources for intricate and philosophically sound investigation of rather deep issues in logic and philosophy of language. No mathematical, logical, or linguistic symbols are used. Meanings need to be identified and clarified before being expressed in symbols. We hope to establish that clarity is served by deferring the extensive use of formalized or logically perfect languages until a solid “informal” foundation has been established. Questions of “ontological status”—e.g., whether propositions or sentences, or for that matter characters, numbers, truth-values, or instants, are “real entities”, are “idealizations”, or are “theoretical constructs”—plays no role in this paper. As is suggested by the title, this paper is written to be read aloud. -/- I hope that reading this aloud in groups will unite people in the enjoyment of the humanistic spirit of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Reid, Constance. Hilbert (a Biography). Reviewed by Corcoran in Philosophy of Science 39 (1972), 106–08. -/- Constance Reid was an insider of the Berkeley-Stanford logic circle. Her San Francisco home was in Ashbury Heights near the homes of logicians such as Dana Scott and John Corcoran. Her sister Julia Robinson was one of the top mathematical logicians of her generation, as was Julia’s husband Raphael Robinson for whom Robinson Arithmetic was named. Julia was a Tarski PhD and, in recognition (...) of a distinguished career, was elected President of the American Mathematics Society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Robinson http://www.awm-math.org/noetherbrochure/Robinson82.html. (shrink)

This volume collects essays under four categories: religious traditions, religious life, emotional states, and historical and theoretical perspectives. These essays describe the ways in which emotions have played a role in various world religions, and analyze the manner in which key components of religious life ritual, music, gender, sexuality and material culture represent and shape emotional performance.

The article argues that descartes' inclusion under the label 'thought' ("cogitatio") of willing, Perceiving, Feeling, Etc., Is a deliberate and ("pace" anscombe and geach) idiosyncratic move. It is not an arbitrary extension of usage, But requires careful diagnosis. The proper diagnosis reveals the philosophical reason for the labelling: the various operations listed are "cogitationes" only and precisely insofar as they include a reflective cognitive act-The mind's intellectual awareness of itself which descartes terms "conscientia". The upshot is that when descartes calls (...) himself a "res cogitans" there is an important and illuminating sense in which he means precisely that-A thing which "thinks". (shrink)

We are much better equipped to let the facts reveal themselves to us instead of blinding ourselves to them or stubbornly trying to force them into preconceived molds. We no longer embarrass ourselves in front of our students, for example, by insisting that “Some Xs are Y” means the same as “Some X is Y”, and lamely adding “for purposes of logic” whenever there is pushback. Logic teaching in this century can exploit the new spirit of objectivity, humility, clarity, observationalism, (...) contextualism, and pluralism. Besides the new spirit there have been quiet developments in logic and its history and philosophy that could radically improve logic teaching. This lecture expands points which apply equally well in first, second, and third courses, i.e. in “critical thinking”, “deductive logic”, and “symbolic logic”. (shrink)

Based on the new and much acclaimed two-volume Cambridge edition of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes by Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch, this anthology of essential texts contains the most important and widely studied of those writings, including the Discourse and Meditations and substantial extracts from the Regulae, Optics, Principles, Objectives and Replies, Comments on a Broadsheet, and Passions of the Soul. In clear, readable, modern English, with a full text and running references to the standard Franco-Latin edition of Descartes, this (...) book is planned as the definitive one-volume reader for all English-speaking students of Descartes. (shrink)

These two volumes provide a translation of the philosophical works of Descartes, based on the best available Latin and French texts. They are intended to replace the only reasonably comprehensive selection of his works in English, by Haldane and Ross, first published in 1911. All the works included in that edition are translated here, together with a number of additional texts crucial for an understanding of Cartesian philosophy, including important material from Descartes' scientific writings. The result should meet the widespread (...) demand for an accurate and authoritative edition of Descartes' philosophical writings in clear and readable modern English. (shrink)

Tradução para o português do verbete de John Cottingham sobre a metafísica de Descartes, publicado in: "A Companion to Metaphysics", ed. Kim, Sosa e Rosenkranz (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) .

This chapter begins by tracing the development of the notion of conscience in the Western philosophical tradition and then addresses questions regarding the supposed authority or normativity of conscience. The relation between the idea of conscience and the notions of guilt and shame is examined, which in turn leads on to the question of whether the concepts of guilt and shame inhabit essentially different ethical landscapes. The chapter concludes by looking at the contribution of psychoanalytic thinking to our modern understanding (...) of the phenomena of conscience, guilt and shame, and by asking why the resulting insights have been so imperfectly assimilated into contemporary anglophone moral philosophy. (shrink)

Corcoran, J. 2007. Psychologism. American Philosophy: an Encyclopedia. Eds. John Lachs and Robert Talisse. New York: Routledge. Pages 628-9. -/- Psychologism with respect to a given branch of knowledge, in the broadest neutral sense, is the view that the branch is ultimately reducible to, or at least is essentially dependent on, psychology. The parallel with logicism is incomplete. Logicism with respect to a given branch of knowledge is the view that the branch is ultimately reducible to logic. Every branch (...) of knowledge depends on logic. Psychologism is found in several fields including history, political science, economics, ethics, epistemology, linguistics, aesthetics, mathematics, and logic. Logicism is found mainly in branches of mathematics: number theory, analysis, and, more rarely, geometry. Although the ambiguous term ‘psychologism’ has senses with entirely descriptive connotations, it is widely used in senses that are derogatory. No writers with any appreciation of this point will label their own views as psychologistic. It is usually used pejoratively by people who disapprove of psychologism. The term ‘scientism’ is similar in that it too has both pejorative and descriptive senses but its descriptive senses are rarely used any more. It is almost a law of linguistics that the negative connotations tend to drive out the neutral and the positive. Dictionaries sometimes mark both words with a usage label such as “Usually disparaging”. In this article, the word is used descriptively mainly because there are many psychologistic views that are perfectly respectable and even endorsed by people who would be offended to have their views labeled psychologism. A person who subscribes to logicism is called a logicist, but there is no standard word for a person who subscribes to psychologism. ‘Psychologist’, which is not suitable, occurs in this sense. ‘Psychologician’, with stress on the second syllable as in ‘psychologist’, has been proposed. In the last century, some of the most prominent forms of psychologism pertained to logic; the rest of this article treats only such forms. Psychologism in logic is very “natural”. After all, logic studies reasoning, which is done by the mind, whose nature and functioning is studied in psychology—using the word ‘psychology’ in its broadest etymological sense. (shrink)

Corcoran, J. 2007. Syntactics, American Philosophy: an Encyclopedia. 2007. Eds. John Lachs and Robert Talisse. New York: Routledge. pp.745-6. -/- Syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics are the three levels of investigation into semiotics, or the comprehensive study of systems of communication, as described in 1938 by the American philosopher Charles Morris (1903-1979). Syntactics studies signs themselves and their interrelations in abstraction from their meanings and from their uses and users. Semantics studies signs in relation to their meanings, but still in (...) abstraction from their uses and users. Pragmatics studies signs as meaningful entities used in various ways by humans. Taking current written English as the system of communication under investigation, it is a matter of syntactics that the two four-character strings ‘tact’ and ‘tics’ both occur in the ten-character string ‘syntactics’. It is a matter of semantics that the ten-character string ‘syntactics’ has only one sense and, in that sense, it denotes a branch of semiotics. It is a matter of pragmatics that the ten-character string ‘syntactics’ was not used as an English word before 1937 and that it is sometimes confused with the much older six-character string ‘syntax’. Syntactics is the simplest and most abstract branch of semiotics. At the same time, it is the most basic. Pragmatics presupposes semantics and syntactics; semantics presupposes syntactics. The basic terms of syntactics include the following: ‘character’ as alphabetic letters, numeric digits, and punctuation marks; ‘string’ as sign composed of a concatenation of characters; ‘occur’ as ‘t’ and ‘c’ both occur twice in ‘syntactics’. However, perhaps the most basic terms of syntactics are ‘type’ and ‘token’ in the senses introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), America’s greatest logician, who could be considered the grandfather of syntactics, if not the father. These are explained below. (shrink)

-/- A schema (plural: schemata, or schemas), also known as a scheme (plural: schemes), is a linguistic template or pattern together with a rule for using it to specify a potentially infinite multitude of phrases, sentences, or arguments, which are called instances of the schema. Schemas are used in logic to specify rules of inference, in mathematics to describe theories with infinitely many axioms, and in semantics to give adequacy conditions for definitions of truth. -/- 1. What is a Schema? (...) 2. Uses of Schemas 3. The Ontological Status of Schemas 4. Schemas in the History of Logic Bibliography. (shrink)

This paper raises obvious questions undermining any residual confidence in Mates work and revealing our embarrassing ignorance of true nature of Stoic deduction. It was inspired by the challenging exploratory work of JOSIAH GOULD.

This paper questions the idea that theism can function as an explanatory hypothesis to account for the nature and origins of the cosmos. Invoking God cannot dissolve the mystery of existence, and the characteristic religious response here is one of awe and humility. I then address David E. Cooper’s challenge of showing how a ”doctrine of mystery’ can have any discursible content. It is argued that certain aspects of our human experience afford us glimpses of the divine nature -- intimations (...) of the transcendent, which shine through from the ineffable source of our being to the human world we inhabit. (shrink)