For Damascius, any attempt to grasp the first principle of all things, the Ineffable, implies the rejection of the principle of non-contradiction (PNC). The reasoning soul, using aporia, is forced to admit contradictory statements as true when it comes to cognising what lies beyond any intelligible being. Damascius shows that it is necessary to postulate a completely transcendent and unknowable Absolute which is the uncoordinated cause of all things beyond the One. This paper examines how Damascius relates the rejection of (...) the PNC and regressive arguments by distinguishing two types of reversal (peritropê) of arguments. This paper begins by analysing: i) Damascius’ first aporia, ii) his characterisation of the first principle as ineffable and iii) its unknowable nature. This leads to some comments about Damascius’ use of predicates and their negations. Finally, the paper distinguishes between regression and reversal to suggest that Damascius’ reversal of the predicates implies that the first principle lies beyond the PNC but does not involve an infinity of first principles. (shrink)

(1) Rupert Read charges that Rawls culpably overlooks the politicized Euthyphro: Do we accept our political perspective because it is right or is it right because we accept it? (2) This charge brings up the question of the deficiency dilemma: Do others disagree with us because of our failures or theirs? —where the two dilemmas appear to be independent of each other and lead to the questions of the logic of deficiency, moral epistemic deficiency, epistemic peers, and the hardness of (...) philosophy. (3) In reply, on an expanded principle of charity Rawls does not overlook the Euthyphro but rather offers ground-breaking solutions to it, (4) that nonetheless trip on the independent bootstrap (5)—as also do Dreben and Nussbaum. (6) Furthermore, Rawls's ' burdens of judgment' seek to bypass the necessity of moral epistemic deficiency and (7) suggest a wider framework for understanding disagreement that sees disagreement as arising from inquiry being in development, unpredictable and uncertain. (8) This wider framework entails that disagreement does not mean moral epistemic deficiency and (9) that our responses to the Euthyphro are 'too soon to say'. (shrink)

A standard method for refuting a set of claims is to show that it implies a contradiction. Stephen Clark questions this method on the grounds that the Law of Non-Contradiction, together with the other fundamental laws of logic do not accord with everyday reality. He accounts for vagueness by suggesting that, for any vague predicate 'F', an ordinary object is typically to some extent both F and not-F, and that objects do not change abruptly from being F to being not-F. (...) I challenge Clark's 'deconstruction' of logic, and show that, in characterizing vagueness and dealing with the associated Sorites paradox, we can accommodate his observation that change from being F to being not-F is ineradically continuous without tampering with any fundamental logical laws. (shrink)

Philosophy has four forms: wonder, faith, doubt and scepticism. These are not separate categories, but separate ideal possibilities. Modern academic philosophy has fallen, for several centuries, into an error: which is the error of supposing that philosophy is only what I call doubt. Philosophy may be doubt: indeed, it is part of my argument that this is undeniably one element of, or one possibility in, philosophy; but doubt is only one of four points of the compass. In this essay I (...) indicate the nature of each point of the compass as it has been found in the history of philosophy. (shrink)