What determines whether an action is right or wrong? Morality, Rules, and Consequences: A Critical Reader explores for students and researchers the relationship between consequentialist theory and moral rules. Most of the chapters focus on rule consequentialism or on the distinction between act and rule versions of consequentialism. Contributors, among them the leading philosophers in the discipline, suggest ways of assessing whether rule consequentialism could be a satisfactory moral theory. These essays, all of which are previously unpublished, provide students in (...) moral philosophy with essential material and ask key questions on just what the criteria for an adequate moral theory might be. (shrink)

Syntactical treatments of propositional attitudes are attractive to artificial intelligence researchers. But results of Montague (1974) and Thomason (1980) seem to show that syntactical treatments are not viable. They show that if representation languages are sufficiently expressive, then axiom schemes characterizing knowledge and belief give rise to paradox. Des Rivières and Levesque (1988) characterize a class of sentences within which these schemes can safely be instantiated. These sentences do not quantify over the propositional objects of knowledge and belief. We argue (...) that their solution is incomplete, and extend it by characterizing a more inclusive class of sentences over which the axiom schemes can safely range. Our sentences do quantify over propositional objects. (shrink)

At Abhidharmakośa VI .3, Vasubandhu analyses the phrase sandhāya ... bha $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s} $$ ita $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{m} $$ as used in the sūtras. Here bhā $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s} $$ ita $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{m} $$ mentions an utterance, to which a figurative sense is ascribed by the gerundive (not noun) sandhāya. The audience is split: some are intended to understand the literal, others the figurative sense. Vasubandhu's analysis works well for sandhābhā $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s} $$ a etc. in the Saddharmapu $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{n}$$ $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ arīka and the Guhyasamājatantra. (The Hevajratantra is (...) different and we consider it separately). Poussin's “arrière-pensée”, Edgerton's “real meaning” and “esoteric meaning”, and Wayman's “twilight language” are attractive in some cases but not all. Vasubandhu's analysis combined with Edgerton's “specially intended” (for ābhiprāyika) is much better; compare V. S. Bhattacharya's old paraphrase of this word “intended to imply or suggest something different from what is expressed by the words”. But Bhattacharya's widely accepted translation “intentional” for ābhiprāyika is misleading and misrepresents Vasubandhu, and we suggest ways of improving it in the light of the need for coherent translation, with the help of some considerations from Pā $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{n}$$ ini and from Montague semantics. (shrink)

Summary Directly concluded from a set of some well-known and some new conditions of adequacy, a definition of deductive-nomological explanation is given which is able to block all known anomalies, and is immune from the Eberle/Kaplan/Montague trivialization theorems. Among some other results it is further shown that law statements have to be logically equivalent to a conditional form.

In recent years a number of books have been published that offer short autobiographical essays of academics, focusing on their research and how their life history affected their scholarly development. These could be labeled as "intellectual journey narratives." Some volumes focus on philosophers and their religious faith or lack thereof (e.g., Clark, 1997, Antony, 2007). Psychology has its own version of the intellectual journey narrative, in T. S. Krawiec's (1972, 1974, 1978) multivolume set of autobiographical essays by contemporary psychologists. In (...) 1987, Rosemary Pilkington edited her first volume of essays entitled Men and Women of Parapsychology: Personal Reflections, Esprit Volume 1. It contains autobiographical essays by Jule Eisenbud, Montague Ullman, Jan Ehrenwald, Eileen Coly, Joseph H. Rush, Gertrude R. Schmeidler, Emilio Servadio, Renée Haynes, Hans Bender, Karlis Osis, George Zorab and Bernard Grad. The second (2013) volume contains autobiographical essays by Mary Rose Barrington, Eberhard Bauer, William Braud (now deceased), Stephen Braude, Richard S. Broughton, Larry Dossey, Sally Rhine Feather, Erlendur Haraldsson, Arthur Hastings, Stanley Krippner, Lawrence LeShan, Roger Nelson, John Palmer, Guy Leon Playfair, William G. Roll (now deceased), Serena Roney-Dougal, Stephan A. Schwartz, Rex G. Stanford, Russell Targ, Charles T. Tart, and Walter von Lucadou. Between the two volumes almost every significant contemporary parapsychologist is represented, with the major exceptions being the late John Beloff and the late Ian Stevenson. (shrink)

At Abhidharmakośa VI .3, Vasubandhu analyses the phrase sandhāya ... bha $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s} $$ ita $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{m} $$ as used in the sūtras. Here bhā $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s} $$ ita $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{m} $$ mentions an utterance, to which a figurative sense is ascribed by the gerundive (not noun) sandhāya. The audience is split: some are intended to understand the literal, others the figurative sense. Vasubandhu's analysis works well for sandhābhā $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s} $$ a etc. in the Saddharmapu $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{n}$$ $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ arīka and the Guhyasamājatantra. (The Hevajratantra is (...) different and we consider it separately). Poussin's “arrière-pensée”, Edgerton's “real meaning” and “esoteric meaning”, and Wayman's “twilight language” are attractive in some cases but not all. Vasubandhu's analysis combined with Edgerton's “specially intended” (for ābhiprāyika) is much better; compare V. S. Bhattacharya's old paraphrase of this word “intended to imply or suggest something different from what is expressed by the words”. But Bhattacharya's widely accepted translation “intentional” for ābhiprāyika is misleading and misrepresents Vasubandhu, and we suggest ways of improving it in the light of the need for coherent translation, with the help of some considerations from Pā $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{n}$$ ini and from Montague semantics. (shrink)

This volume presents significant developments in the field of Montague Grammar and outlines its past and future contributions to philosophy and linguistics. The contents are as follows: Introduction by Steven Davis and Marianne Mithun Emmon Bach, "Montague Grammar and Classical Transformational Grammar" Barbara H. Partee, "Constraining Transformational Montague Grammar: A Framework and a Fragment" James D. McCawley, "Helpful Hints to the Ordinary Working Montague Grammarian" Terence Parsons, "Type Theory and Ordinary Language" David R. Dowty, "Dative 'Movement' and Thomason's Extensions of (...) Montague Grammar" Muffy E. A. Siegel, "Measure Adjectives in Montague Grammar" Michael Bennett, "Mass Nouns and Mass Terms in Montague Grammar" Jeroen Groenendijk and Martin Stokhof, "Infinitives and Context in Montague Grammar" James Waldo, "A PTQ Semantics for Sortal Incorrectness". (shrink)

Franz Brentano’s theory of emotion is tightly bound up with many of his other central claims, in such a way that one has to work out how it relates to these other claims if one is to understand its distinctive character. There are two main axes of investigation. The first results from the fact that Brentano introduces his theory of emotion as part of his overall theory of mind, which consists of a number of closely interconnected theses concerning the nature (...) of mental phenomena, the nature of consciousness, and the classification of mental phenomena into fundamental kinds (Brentano 1874/1973a). The second derives from the fact that his theory of emotion also forms the foundation of his epistemology of objective value, which he elaborates in a framework constituted by an epistemic theory of truth and an extended analogy he draws between emotions and judgments (Brentano 1889/1969). I will consider both of these axes in what follows. (shrink)

Does thought have distinctive experiential features? Is there, in addition to sensory phenomenology, a kind of cognitive phenomenology--phenomenology of a cognitive or conceptual character? Leading philosophers of mind debate whether conscious thought has cognitive phenomenology and whether it is part of conscious perception and conscious emotion.

In 1759, at the height of the Seven Years' War, when Great Britain was suffering a series of military reversals, Montagu considered his country's plight in an historical context formed by the study of five ancient republics: Sparta, Athens, Thebes, Carthage, and Rome. Montagu's focus on the ancient republics gives his contribution a distinctive twist to the chorus of voices lamenting Britain's decline, and his analysis exerted influence in three momentous eighteenth-century crises: the Seven Years' War, the American War of (...) Independence, and the French Revolution. This is the first modern edition of Montagu's work. Edward Wortley Montagu (1713 -1776) was the son of a wealthy British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He was a student of oriental languages at the University of Leiden, which apparently proved useful during the peace negotiations at Aix-la-Chapelle which concluded the War of the Austrian Succession in 1748. David Womersley is the Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. He has published widely on English literature from the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. He is the editor of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (2012) for Cambridge University Press. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Aquinas’s doctrine of individuation as it applies to human beings. There are three main sections. In the first, the general lines of Aquinas’s doctrine of individuation are presented in the context of discussing an article by Joseph Owens and some other recent work on individuation. I argue for form as the primary principle of individuation and specify the uniqueness of human individuality by reference to the degrees of perfection among things. The second section focuses on three (...) ways in which a meditation on our form—the rational soul—is fruitful for understanding what makes us individuals. Here I consider, in turn, the three distinctive activities of human reason—theoretical, moral, and aesthetic. Each activity is presented as it relates to three levels of perfection in the human being. In the third section, I bring up three pertinent objections to my thesis and suggest answers to them. (shrink)

This concise introduction examines a wide range of ethical positions, including relativism, emotivism, egoism, utilitarianism, Kantian formalism, & natural law.

Tye's book develops a persuasive and, in many respects, original argument for the view that the qualitative side of our mental life is representational in..

In American philosophy at the end of the nineteenth century there was small interest in Empiricism and almost no interest in Realism.

This book fills a gap in studies of meaning by providing detailed case studies of attested corpus data on the meanings of words and phrases.

Freedom, Philosophy, and Faith: The Transformational Role of Freedom in the Thought of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas highlights the essential role freedom plays in the Catholic intellectual tradition. Montague Brown argues that that freedom, taken in its most essential form as understood by the Judeo-Christian tradition, has been transformative in all aspects of human thought, from metaphysics to politics.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 7, Page 27-30, July 2012.