It is sometimes said that our age is an age of relativism. For example, Paul Tillich has expressed his “uneasiness about the victory of relativism in all realms of thought and life today.” Karl Popper tells us that “the main philosophical malady of our time is an intellectual and moral relativism, the latter being at least in part based on the former.” What Popper refers to as “intellectual relativism” consists in part in a doctrine about truth which is sometimes expressed (...) as “There is no such thing as absolute truth.” At other times it is expressed by saying “truth is relative.”. (shrink)

Despite seemingly ambiguous writings, Beard is a relativist. Beard states that if historical conceptions are relative, then relativity is relative; this is not a rejection of relativism. As times change, doctrines become outmoded. Beard's times were right for relativism, so he was a relativist, despite his knowledge of its eventual demise. Relativism cannot provide the historian with a frame of reference to interpret the "totality of history." He must choose a comprehensive and informed frame. Beard seems to indicate that historians (...) can forecast the future; yet, this contradicts his rejection of absolute historical truths. He is not discussing forecasting future events, but forecasting future frames of reference. (shrink)

Psychologism in logic holds that logic is a branch of psychology. This view has been vigorously defended by John Stuart Mill and by a number of German philosophers of logic, notably Erdmann. Its chief critics have been Husserl and Frege and, to a lesser extent, Russell. Husserl set forth a profound and detailed critique of psychologism in Logical Investigations. This paper examines this critique. First, I explain why the psychologistic theory is attractive. Then I show that Husserl's critique is not (...) convincing, partly because he does not take the theory in its most plausible form and partly because he ignores certain important distinctions (for example, between what a statement is about and what it is true in virtue of). Then I raise two new objections to the psychologistic theory. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the psychologistic theory remains an important and serious position from which we can learn much about the status of logic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jack W. Meiland INTERPRETATION AS A COGNITIVE DISCIPLINE Interpretation is the fundamental method of the humanities. The humanist is concerned first to understand what a text, a speech, a work of art, means; and interpretation has this understanding as its goal. All of the other activities and aims of the humanist depend on interpretation. One cannot properly appreciate a work of art until one grasps what it (...) means. Nor can one appropriately evaluate it until this condition is met. Moreover, the importance of interpretation reaches far beyond the humanities into everyday life, where we interpret what we hear and read in order to grasp meanings. Its importance reaches into the sciences: the social sciences where one must interpret this individual behavior and that institutional practice, and the natural sciences where one must interpret the results of one's experiments. Because interpretation is of such fundamental and pervasive importance in our lives, it is urgent for us to understand what interpretation is and what it should aim at. In this article, I investigate the activity of interpretation by focusing on the interpretation of literary texts and by beginning with the views of E. D. Hirsch, Jr. Eleven years ago, Hirsch published Validity in Interpretation, a book which delves into the nature of interpretation in great detail.1 Richard Palmer has said that Hirsch's book is "the first full-dress treatise in general hermeneutics written in English," and continues, "In the years to come, it will undoubtedly take its place among the significant American works on the theory of interpretation. In a systematic and carefully argued presentation, the book challenges some of the most cherished assumptions that have guided literary interpretation for some four decades."2 1 think that Palmer's prediction has been fulfilled. Hirsch's book remains a decade later one of the very few systematic American works in this field,3 and it has been widely read, much used in university courses, and has significantly influenced thought on its subject. Validity in Interpretation presents a carefully worked-out position buttressed by philosophically-informed 23 24Philosophy and Literature and systematic argumentation in a way which reveals the fundamental questions at issue. Although there have been scattered criticisms of Hirsch's views,4 in my opinion there has not so far appeared the kind of searching critique which this book deserves in view of its attempt to deal with these issues so seriously and at such a fundamental level and in view of the influence which the book has had. The necessity for a critique is now reinforced by the recent publication of another book by Hirsch, The Aims of Interpretation, more than half of which is devoted to a further explication and defense of these same views.5 In undertaking to reply to Hirsch's position, I hope not only to cast doubt on that position but also, and mainly, to provide better foundations for the view which I hold. It is one of the great merits of Hirsch's work that it facilitates that constructive effort by attacking the issues at such a basic level, enabling us to come to grips with them immediately. In what follows, I will describe Hirsch's view, make clear what kind of position he holds, and defend his view against criticisms which I consider misguided. Then we will be in a position to assess his contentions and to defend an alternative theory. Hirsch's view is, briefly, that the interpretation of a literary work should aim at re-creating (or, as he sometimes puts it, "re-cognizing") the meaning which the author of that work intended the work to have. He opposes all views which ignore authorial meaning; views which hold that the meaning of a work may change through the ages, so that the work may have one meaning at one time and another meaning at another time; views which hold that the work may have meaning in virtue of its relation to the interpreter's interests, to the needs and problems of the interpreter's times or the spirit of his age, or in fact to anything except the author's intended meaning.6 The first point that must be... (shrink)

This paper first explains why the charge of self-refutation against extreme relativism is so important and then defends extreme relativism against two of the most recent and most sophisticated accusations of self-refutation. It is shown that these accusations seem plausible only because they illicitly employ principles appropriate only to absolute truth; hence these accusations are unsound. One central topic of discussion in the paper is the relation between "a believes that p" and "p is true for a".

This paper first explains why the charge of self-refutation against extreme relativism is so important and then defends extreme relativism against two of the most recent and most sophisticated accusations of self-refutation. It is shown that these accusations seem plausible only because they illicitly employ principles appropriate only to absolute truth; hence these accusations are unsound. One central topic of discussion in the paper is the relation between "a believes that p" and "p is true for a".

In his valuable book [3], Israel Scheffler presents an extended critique of Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science. Scheffler argues against Kuhn's “main thesis,” namely that “... paradigm change in science is not generally subject to deliberation and critical assessment”. Scheffler does recognize, though, that there are important elements of Kuhn's view that themselves seem to conflict with this “main thesis.” For these elements seem to make possible deliberation, critical assessment, and objectivity in the discussion of scientific paradigms. So it appears (...) from Scheffler's critique that Kuhn's position is inconsistent. The puzzle is compounded by Kuhn's admission—indeed, insistence—that his book does contain “a preliminary codification of good reasons for theory choice. These are... reasons of exactly the kind standard in philosophy of science: accuracy, scope, simplicity, fruitfulness, and the like”. In his recent reply to Kuhn, Scheffler quotes this passage from Kuhn and says: “If these reasons are not... to be construed as utterly free of all constraints or themselves paradigm-dependent, then they allow the comparison of rival paradigms and make paradigm debates intelligible. Such intelligibility is, however, at odds with Kuhn's statement that the proponents of competing paradigms ‘will inevitably talk through each other’”. In this interchange between Scheffler and Kuhn, one gets the impression of people, if not paradigms, talking “through each other.” I think that this nonmeeting of minds is due to interpreting Kuhn as an opponent of objectivity when in fact he is not an opponent but a proponent. It is this misinterpretation which produces the apparent inconsistency in Kuhn's position. In this paper I suggest a way of understanding Kuhn which resolves this apparent inconsistency in his work and might help to focus discussion on the real issue between Kuhn and many of his critics. This suggestion has the crucial consequence of shifting the focus from objectivity to the real issue, namely truth. (shrink)

In this paper I shall attempt to perform two tasks; first, to defend James Jordan's recent self-referential arguments for the inconsistency of Protagorean relativism from the criticisms of Jack Meiland, and second, to contribute towards the cause of undermining Protagorean and conceptual relativism by criticizing Meiland's own explication of the notion of relative truth.

EDITORS NOTE: Typographical corrections of page proofs were accidentally left out of Dr. Beach's article, which appeared in the January issue of this volume. The omission diminishes the value of the article; and the Editor apologizes for the oversight to Dr. Beach and the readers of Metaphilosophy. A typographically correct version is given below.

EDITORS NOTE: Typographical corrections of page proofs were accidentally left out of Dr. Beach's article, which appeared in the January issue of this volume. The omission diminishes the value of the article; and the Editor apologizes for the oversight to Dr. Beach and the readers of Metaphilosophy. A typographically correct version is given below.

EDITORS NOTE: Typographical corrections of page proofs were accidentally left out of Dr. Beach's article, which appeared in the January issue of this volume. The omission diminishes the value of the article; and the Editor apologizes for the oversight to Dr. Beach and the readers of Metaphilosophy. A typographically correct version is given below.

This study takes its shape around two fundamentally opposed ways of understanding the discipline of history. The one regards historical inquiry as capable of discovering "what really happened" in the human past and considers historical truth to be a matter of the correspondence between historical accounts and the past as it actually was. The other regards historical inquiry as actually constructing the human past by its methods of interpreting evidence and considers historical truth to be a matter of the internal (...) coherence of historical accounts and their compatibility with the evidence upon which they are based. My thesis is that neither the "Discovery Theory" nor the "Construction Theory" offers a satisfactory analysis of history. I offer an alternate theory which regards the concepts of correspondence and coherence as complementary and mutually necessary to such an analysis. ;The primary material of this study is to be found in two recent books, Jack Meiland's Scepticism and Historical Knowledge and Leon Goldstein's Historical Knowing , which attempt systematically to defend a Construction Theory of history. These two defenses are particularly interesting because they are grounded in very different epistemological orientations. Meiland approaches the subject from a logical positivist point of view; Goldstein takes a perspective an idealist or phenomenologist would appreciate. ;I begin in Chapter 1 with a brief historical sketch of the way the Construction Theory has evolved out of criticisms of the Discovery Theory. In Chapter 2 I argue against Meiland's claim that there cannot be present evidence of past events. Here I consider the nature and the role of general correlation principles in history. In Chapter 3 I argue against Meiland's use of the positivist Verifiability Criterion to prove that historical statements are meaningless. My claim is that historical statements are indirectly verifiable in principle. In Chapter 4 I develop Goldstein's theory of historical verification and support his view that the concept of coherence plays the major role in this process. In Chapter 5 I argue against Goldstein's theory of historical reference and develop the claim that verified historical statements must be regarded as referring to the past. In Chapter 6 I return to Meland in order to consider the relevance of the concept of correspondence to the analysis of historical reference. ;In Chapter 7 I attempt to define the middle ground between the two theories by developing the idea of historical truth. I argue that the concept of coherence is an indispensable part of the analysis of historical verification, that the concept of correspondence is indispensable to the understanding of historical reference, and that both are involved in the notion of historical meaningfulness. (shrink)

The publication of Robert Sugden's The Community of Advantage in 2018 might very well turn out to be a landmark event in welfare economics. In the book, Sugden presents a highly original view on wh...

Many contemporary Anglo-American philosophers describe themselves as naturalists. But what do they mean by that term? Popular naturalist slogans like, "there is no first philosophy" or "philosophy is continuous with the natural sciences" are far from illuminating. "Understanding Naturalism" provides a clear and readable survey of the main strands in recent naturalist thought. The origin and development of naturalist ideas in epistemology, metaphysics and semantics is explained through the works of Quine, Goldman, Kuhn, Chalmers, Papineau, Millikan and others. The most (...) common objections to the naturalist project - that it involves a change of subject and fails to engage with "real" philosophical problems, that it is self-refuting, and that naturalism cannot deal with normative notions like truth, justification and meaning - are all discussed. "Understanding Naturalism" distinguishes two strands of naturalist thinking - the constructive and the deflationary - and explains how this distinction can invigorate naturalism and the future of philosophical research. (shrink)

Perhaps the time has finally arrived for a fuller appreciation of Ernst Bloch, the eminent Marxist philosopher of the “not-yet.” At the very least, Wayne Hudson's book will make Bloch's ideas better-known in America, and known in a manner that Bloch himself would have approved. Hudson's incisive and cogent study gives readers an inkling of the diverse and provocative Blochian theories that are there for us to “inherit,” if we can learn to sift the gems of light from the poetical (...) and somewhat esoteric philosopher's pen. Given Bloch's voluminous output and the incredible demands he places on his readers, Hudson's work illuminates a way into and beyond Bloch's ideas. (shrink)

These essays in aesthetics by the philosopher Ernst Bloch belong to the tradition of cultural criticism represented by Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. Bloch's fascination with art as a reflection of both social realities and human dreams is evident in them. Whether he is discussing architecture or detective novels, the theme that drives the work is always the same - the striving for "something better," for a "homeland" that is more socially aware, more humane, more just.The book opens (...) with an illuminating discussion between Bloch and Adorno on the meaning of utopia; then follow 12 essays written between 1930 and 1973, on topics as diverse as aesthetic theory, genres such as music, painting, theater, film, opera, poetry, and the novel, and perhaps most important, popular culture in the form of fairy tales, detective stories, and dime novels.Ernst Bloch was a profoundly original and unorthodox philosopher, social theorist, and cultural critic. The MIT Press has previously published his Natural Law and Human Dignity and his magnum opus, The Principle of Hope. The Utopian Function of Art and Literature is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Fantasy Matters Too MuchJack Zipes (bio)In September 1997 a fairy-tale princess and a holy saint, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, died within a few days of each other. Millions of people openly and dramatically expressed their grief and mourning. Their pictures along with many different images of Diana and Mother Teresa were beamed all over the world through television and the Internet. The mass media carried all sorts (...) of stories and acclaimed the two of them as the fairy-tale princess and the saint, so that little was left to the imagination. Fantastic spectacle was all that mattered.We speculate with the fantastic. Fantasy is a celebrity and money-making machine. As a module in our brains, it has the capacity to transform plain junk into gold that glitters. Fantasy mobilizes and instrumentalizes the fantastic to form and celebrate spectacles that exist and have always existed—illusions of social relations of exploitation based on power. Spectacles violate and drain our imaginations by glorifying social relations of power that are made spectacular and involve the magic of fetishism. Generally, the results bring about delusion and acclamation of particular sets of social relations that are commodified, sold, and consumed. We acclaim commodities that we don’t know, products that are not of our own making and that we consume mentally and physically. We reproduce images consciously and unconsciously that are not of our own making. The media and the corporate world occupy our psyches and manipulate our fantasies even when we [End Page 77] dream. Our relations are mediated through fantastic spectacle and through fetish abetted by the latest technology that connects us to each other while also disconnecting us from our minds and feelings. Simultaneously, we seek to project our desires in the form of fantasies onto reality and endeavor to occupy a space in which our most profound wishes and desires can be realized. We seek cognition and recognition. In each instance—in the tension between corporate determination of the fantastic and individual projection of desire—we seem to anchor our understanding of reality in artworks dependent on the fantastic, such as the Bible and fairy tales. Hence, Mother Teresa the saint. Diana the fairy-tale princess.It is through fantasy that we have always sought to make sense of the world, not through reason. Reason matters, but fantasy matters more. Perhaps it has mattered too much, and our reliance on fantasy may wear thin and betray us even while it nourishes us and gives us hope that the world can be a better place. We have imagined gods, the kingdom of a single god, the miraculous feats of divine and semidivine characters, and the commandments that have been established to lead us to the good life, if not paradise. It is through the fictive projections of our imaginations based on personal experience that we have sought to grasp, explain, alter, and comment on reality. This is again why such staples as the Bible and the Grimms fairy tales have become canonical texts: unlike reality, they allegedly open the mysteries of life and reveal ways in which we can maintain ourselves and our integrity in a conflict-ridden world. They compensate for the constant violation of nature and life itself and for the everyday violation of our lives engendered through spectacle. They contest reality and also become conflated with reality.But our fantasy and the fantasies that we conceive have become desperate because they are outstripped by real existing conditions that instrumentalize them at every waking second of our day, and even when we slumber. It is a commonplace today that fiction, especially science fiction and what we label fantasy in the world of art, cannot keep pace with the devastating and disturbing fantastic of real occurrences, or what I call the incredible credibility of the real. When the normal is so fantastically abnormal, what role can fantastic artworks play in our lives? Is the violence that we encounter in our everyday lives so much more fantastic than in literature, film, and the arts that we seek to consume the fantastic like harmless junk food as quick fixes and consolation? Can our joys really and realistically... (shrink)

This paper argues that evidential decision theory is incompatible with options having objective values. If options have objective values, then it should always be rationally permissible for an agent to choose an option if they are certain that the option uniquely maximizes objective value. But, as we show, if options have objective values and evidential decision theory is true, then it is not always rationally permissible for an agent to choose an option if they are certain that the option uniquely (...) maximizes objective value. (shrink)