Since it was presented in 1963, Chisholm’s paradox has attracted constant attention in the deontic logic literature, but without the emergence of any definitive solution. We claim this is due to its having no single solution. The paradox actually presents many challenges to the formalization of deontic statements, including (1) context sensitivity of unconditional oughts, (2) formalizing conditional oughts, and (3) distinguishing generic from nongeneric oughts. Using the practical interpretation of ‘ought’ as a guideline, we propose a linguistically (...) motivated logical solution to each of these problems, and explain the relation of the solution to the problem of contrary-to-duty obligations. (shrink)

It has been maintained that we are quite able to express (1*)–(4*) without the introduction of a dyadic deontic operator, provided only that we supply our standard deontic logic with a stronger conditional than material implication. The lesson learned from Chisholm's paradox has been the eminently convincing, indeed obvious, one: that what we ought to do is not determined by what is the case in some perfect world, but by what is the case in the best world we (...) can ‘get to’ from this world. What we ought to do depends upon how we are circumstanced. (shrink)

Essentialists suppose that for every individual, if that individual exists at any possible world, then necessarily that individual exemplifies some non-trivial qualitative property essential to it, as such. Anti-essentialists deny this. One important argument leveled by some anti-essentialists against essentialism takes the form of a thought experiment, one originally introduced by Roderick Chisholm, sometimes referred to as Chisholm's Paradox (CP). In this essay, I defend essentialism against CP. I begin by presenting the argument and showing how it leads (...) to a contradiction of the essentialist thesis. I then consider one of the most popular solutions to CP to date, that given by Nathan Salmon. Next, I critique Salmon's proposal and show that it is an insufficient response on behalf of the essentialist. And finally, I propose a novel solution to the paradox and discuss why it is that many metaphysician in the past have found CP plausible, despite being fallacious. (shrink)

Lewis’s [1968] counterpart theory (LCT for short), motivated by his modal realism, made its appearance within a year of Chisholm’s modal paradox [1967]. We are not modal realists, but we argue that a satisfactory resolution to the paradox calls for a counterpart-theoretic (CT-)semantics. We make our case by showing that the Chandler–Salmon strategy of denying the S4 axiom [◊◊ψ →◊ψ] is inadequate to resolve the paradox – we take on Salmon’s attempts to defend that strategy against objects (...) from Lewis and Williamson. We then consider three substantially different CT-approaches: Lewis’s LCT, Forbes’s (FCT), including his fuzzy version, and Ramachandran’s (RCT). We argue that the best approach is a mish-mash of FCT and RCT. (shrink)

Here we prove that if T and T′ are strongly minimal theories, where T′ satisfies a certain property related to triviality and T does not, and T′ is model complete, then there is no computable embedding of Mod(T) into Mod(T′). Using this, we answer a question from [4], showing that there is no computable embedding of VS into ZS, where VS is the class of infinite vector spaces over Q, and ZS is the class of models of Th(Z, S). Similarly, (...) we show that there is no computable embedding of ACF into ZS, where ACF is the class of algebraically closed fields of characteristic 0. (shrink)

We study the weak truth-table and truth-table degrees of the images of subsets of computable structures under isomorphisms between computable structures. In particular, we show that there is a low c.e. set that is not weak truth-table reducible to any initial segment of any scattered computable linear ordering. Countable $\Pi _{1}^{0}$ subsets of 2ω and Kolmogorov complexity play a major role in the proof.

Life history theory suggests that in risky and uncertain environments the optimal reproductive strategy is to reproduce early in order to maximize the probability of leaving any descendants at all. The fact that early menarche facilitates early reproduction provides an adaptationist rationale for our first two hypotheses: that women who experience more risky and uncertain environments early in life would have (1) earlier menarche and (2) earlier first births than women who experience less stress at an early age. Attachment theory (...) and research provide the rationale for our second two hypotheses: that the subjective early experience of risky and uncertain environments (insecurity) is (3) part of an evolved mechanism for entraining alternative reproductive strategies contingent on environmental risk and uncertainty and (4) reflected in expected lifespan. Evidence from our pilot study of 100 women attending antenatal clinics at a large metropolitan hospital is consistent with all four hypotheses: Women reporting more troubled family relations early in life had earlier menarche, earlier first birth, were more likely to identify with insecure adult attachment styles, and expected shorter lifespans. Multivariate analyses show that early stress directly affected age at menarche and first birth, affected adult attachment in interaction with expected lifespan, but had no effect on expected lifespan, where its original effect was taken over by interactions between age at menarche and adult attachment as well as age at first birth and adult attachment. We discuss our results in terms of the need to combine evolutionary and developmental perspectives and the relation between early stress in general and father absence in particular. (shrink)

Life history theory’s principle of allocation suggests that because immature organisms cannot expend reproductive effort, the major trade-off facing juveniles will be the one between survival, on one hand, and growth and development, on the other. As a consequence, infants and children might be expected to possess psychobiological mechanisms for optimizing this trade-off. The main argument of this paper is that the attachment process serves this function and that individual differences in attachment organization (secure, insecure, and possibly others) may represent (...) facultative adaptations to conditions of risk and uncertainty that were probably recurrent in the environment of human evolutionary adaptedness. (shrink)

This paper investigates hypotheses drawn from two sources: (1) Belsky, Steinberg, and Draper’s (1991) attachment theory model of the development of reproductive strategies, and (2) recent life history models and comparative data suggesting that environmental risk and uncertainty may be potent determinants of the optimal tradeoff between current and future reproduction. A retrospective, self-report study of 136 American university women aged 19–25 showed that current recollections of early stress (environmental risk and uncertainty) were related to individual differences in adult time (...) preference and adult sexual behavior, and that individual differences in time preference were related to adult attachment organization and sexual behavior. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that perceptions of early stress index environmental risk and uncertainty and mediate the attachment process and the development of reproductive strategies. On this view individual differences in time preference are considered to be part of the attachment theoretical construct of an internal working model, which itself is conceived as an evolved algorithm for the contingent development of alternative reproductive strategies. (shrink)

We show that for every computable limit ordinal α, there is a computable structure A that is $\Delta _\alpha ^0 $ categorical, but not relatively $\Delta _\alpha ^0 $ categorical (equivalently. it does not have a formally $\Sigma _\alpha ^0 $ Scott family). We also show that for every computable limit ordinal a, there is a computable structure A with an additional relation R that is intrinsically $\Sigma _\alpha ^0 $ on A. but not relatively intrinsically $\Sigma _\alpha ^0 $ (...) on A (equivalently, it is not definable by a computable $\Sigma _\alpha $ formula with finitely many parameters). Earlier results in [7], [10], and [8] establish the same facts for computable successor ordinals α. (shrink)

Gangestad & Simpson's model of the evolution of within-sex differences in reproductive strategies requires a degree of female choice that probably did not exist because of male coercion. We argue as well that the tradeoff between current and future reproduction accounts for more of the within-sex differences in reproductive strategies than the “good-genes-good parenting” tradeoff they propose.

Spin gauge models use a real Clifford algebraic structure Rp,q associated with a real manifold of dimension p + q to describe the fundamental interactions of elementary particles. This review provides a comparison between those models and the standard model, indicating their similarities and differences. By contrast with the standard model, the spin gauge model based on R3,8 generates intermediate boson mass terms without the need to use the Higgs-Kibble mechanism and produces a precise prediction for the mass of the (...) top quark. The potential of this model to account for exactly three families of fermions is considered. (shrink)

"We often find that the state of not-knowing can be a precursor to moments of rich discovery which possess a dynamic, transformative power that exceeds any prior expectation." From the Introduction In daily life, when we see, hear or touch something that we don't recognise, we are instantly at our most alert. In that condition of 'not-knowing' we are in a state of alive, lithe awareness: asking questions, inviting input, open to learning, looking for significance and meaning... These essays, most (...) by practising psychotherapists, some of them Buddhists, take as their starting point the idea that not-knowing is fundamental to conscious reflection and the desire to know must always arise in the first instance from the self-awareness of not-knowing. Read in any order, on waking, before sleeping or when in doubt... they will be of interest to anyone who has ever sat in either chair in a psychotherapist's or counsellor's room - as well as anyone troubled or intrigued by what it takes to live comfortably and well in a condition of not knowing all (or even any) of the answers. (shrink)

Early psychosocial stress (e.g., parental divorce, abuse) is conjectured to place individuals on a developmental trajectory leading to earlier initiation of sexual activity, earlier reproduction, and having more sex partners than those with less early psychosocial stress. But does it also affect an individual’s mate choice? The present study examined whether early psychosocial stress affects preferences and dislikes for opposite-sex faces varying in masculinity/femininity, a putative indicator of mate quality, in premenopausal women (58 with a natural cycle, 53 pill-users) and (...) 196 men. No significant three-way interactions were found when women selected the most or least preferred face with participant group (natural cycle, pill), conception risk (low, high), and early psychosocial stress (low, high) as between-subjects factors. Early psychosocial stress did not affect men’s face preferences when selecting the most preferred face. However, men with high early psychosocial stress disliked masculine faces significantly more so than men with low early psychosocial stress. Overall it was concluded that early psychosocial stress does not affect mate choice with the exception that men with high early psychosocial stress were more likely to dislike masculine female faces. It was suggested that men with high early psychosocial stress may dislike masculine female faces because they have nothing to gain from associating with women with such faces. (shrink)

When the COVID-19 surge hit New York City hospitals, the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College, and our affiliated ethics consultation services, faced waves of ethical issues sweeping forward with intensity and urgency. In this article, we describe our experience over an eight-week period (16 March through 10 May 2020), and describe three types of services: clinical ethics consultation (CEC); service practice communications/interventions (SPCI); and organizational ethics advisement (OEA). We tell this narrative through the prism of time, (...) describing the evolution of ethical issues and trends as the pandemic unfolded. We delineate three phases: anticipation and preparation, crisis management, and reflection and adjustment. The first phase focused predominantly on ways to address impending resource shortages and to plan for remote ethics consultation, and CECs focused on code status discussions with surrogates. The second phase was characterized by the dramatic convergence of a rapid increase in the number of critically ill patients, a growing scarcity of resources, and the reassignment/ redeployment of staff outside their specialty areas. The third phase was characterized by the recognition that while the worst of the crisis was waning, its medium- and long-term consequences continued to pose immense challenges. We note that there were times during the crisis that serving in the role of clinical ethics consultant created a sense of dis-ease as novel as the coronavirus itself. In retrospect we learned that our activities far exceeded the familiar terrain of clinical ethics consultation and extended into other spheres of organizational life in novel ways that were unanticipated before this pandemic. To that end, we defined and categorized a middle level of ethics consultation, which we have termed service practice communication intervention (SPCI). This is an underappreciated dimension of the work that ethics consult services are capable of in times of crisis. We believe that the pandemic has revealed the many enduring ways that ethics consultation services can more robustly contribute to the ethical life of their institutions moving forward. (shrink)

Franz Brentano developed an original theory of intrinsic value which he attempted to base on his philosophical psychology. Roderick Chisholm presents here a critical exposition of this theory and its place in Brentano's general philosophical system. He gives a detailed account of Brentano's ontology, showing how Brentano tried to secure objectivity for ethics not through a theory of practical reason, but through his theory of the intentional objects of emotions and desires. Professor Chisholm goes on to develop certain suggestions about (...) intrinsic value made by Brentano and his students, and discusses their relevance to theodicy and the problem of evil. Brentano, as the teacher of Husserl, Meinong, Twardowski, and others, stands at the origin of the phenomenological tradition and of the Polish school of philosophy that developed after World War I. He has also had considerable influence on Anglo-American philosophy. This book will interest those concerned with the origins of phenomenological value theory and more generally with the connections between ethics and philosophical psychology. (shrink)

_The Foundations of Knowing _ was first published in 1982. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. This collection of essays on the foundations of empirical knowledge brings together ten of Roderick M. Chisholm's most important papers in epistemology, three of them published for the first time, the others significantly revised and expanded for this edition. The essays in Part I constitute (...) a thoroughgoing defense of foundationalism—the doctrine that our justification for believing always rests upon a self-evident basis. In Part II, Chisholm applies foundationalist principles to various areas within the theory of knowledge, and in part III he presents a history of twentieth-century American epistemology. "Roderick M. Chisholm's work has been most influential both in the development of epistemology and in the widespread application of his analytic method. I am sure this publication featuring the unification of his views will be of great value to those working on the central issues of philosophy." Hector-Neri Castañeda, Indiana University Roderick Chisholm is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of philosophy at Brown University. Among his books are _Perceiving: A Philosophical Study, Theory of Knowledge, Person and Object_,and _The First Person _. (shrink)

Brentano uses terms in place of predicates (e.g. "a thinker" in place of "thinks") and characterizes the "is" of predication in terms of the part-whole relation. Taking as his ontological data certain intentional phenomena that are apprehended with certainty, he conceives the substance-accident relation as a defmeable type of part-whole relation which we can apprehend in "inner perception". He is then able to distinguish the following types of individual or ens reale: substances; primary individuals which are not substances; accidents; aggregates; (...) and boundaries. (shrink)

Roderick Chisholm has been for many years one of the most important and influential philosophers contributing to metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. This book can be viewed as a summation of his views on an enormous range of topics in metaphysics and epistemology. Yet it is written in the terse, lucid, unpretentious style that has become a hallmark of Chisholm's work. The book is an original treatise designed to defend an original, non-Aristotelian theory of categories. Chisholm argues that (...) there are necessary things and contingent things; necessary things being things that are not capable of coming into being or passing away. He defends the argument from design, and thus includes the category of necessary substance (God). Further contentions of the essay are that attributes are also necessary beings, but not necessary substances, and that human beings are contingent substances but may not be material substances. (shrink)

This landmark collection of essays by six renowned philosophers explores the implications of the contentious realism/antirealism debate for epistemology. The essays examine issues such as whether epistemology needs to be realist, the bearing of a realist conception of truth on epistemology, and realism and antirealism in terms of a pragmatist conception of epistemic justification. Richard Rorty's essay provides a critical commentary on the other five.

The thinker today who wishes to understand the phenomenon of contemporary atheism must take some account of the general development of speculation about God that took place in the modern centuries and particularly since the time of Immanuel Kant. The reason for this is obvious enough, for it is only against the background of its development and in the light of the various influences which caused it that the peculiar character of present-day atheism and its precise significance can be adequately (...) explained. Why is it that proofs for God’s existence, if they are considered at all, are normally given such short shrift by the contemporary atheist. How did he come to find such difficulty about accepting the properties traditionally attributed to God, particularly that of infinity? What has belief in God got to do with human alienation? Answers to these and similar questions lie in the history of philosophical ideas that maturated in the minds of a long line of philosophers from Descartes, through Kant, to contemporary atheistic existentialists. (shrink)

I had my accident on the rugby field on July 29, 2000 about 2.00 p.m. during a simple line - out, even before the ball was thrown in. I t just felt like another simple case of concussion , I staggered to the sideline, the coach asked me “what ’s wrong”? He said I told him I just felt sick and to put me back on the field in 10 minutes. Then I collapsed, eventually blacked out and then was rushed (...) to hospital unconscious in an ambulance with them struggling drastically to keep me alive. Af ter three days of being in there, they thought I was alright and were going to send me home. Then it star ted happening. First I nearly collapsed again tak ing a shower . For days the spe - cialists didn’t k now what was wrong with me. M y girlfriend at the time, who had rushed down from Wanak a when she had heard it had happened went mad at the specialists to do something. Af ter six days of going in and out of seizures, finally af ter what seemed like all the tests k nown to man, they said I had suffered several brain stem strokes then one massive major one, which altogether had lef t me diagnosed with the ex tremely rare and unk nown condition only k nown to a few as “ locked in syndrome”. (shrink)

In the paper Plantinga refers to, I had set forth three axioms for what I had called the strict and philosophical sense of the term "part," or "proper part." These axioms tell us, in effect, that the expression "x is an S-part of y" expresses a relation that is transitive, asymmetric, and such that x bears it to y at all times that y exists. The latter clause may be put in Plantinga’s terms by saying "x bears it to y (...) at every time in every world in which y exists." Plantinga points out that there are several other relations that also have these properties, for example, the relation of proper set inclusion among sets of contingent objects. He asks, therefore, whether it is possible to supplement my three axioms in such a way that they single out properties that are peculiar to the relation of strict proper part. (shrink)

This essay uses the phenomenal advent of women's climbing as a paradigm case for integrating feminism and phenomenology, and for analyzing how women experience and evolve free movement and existence. In contrast to the paradigm set by Iris Marion Young's “Throwing like a Girl,” it stresses the category of the lived body over the category of gender, and it reveals how women, by employing and cultivating the body's motility and spatiality, engage and transcend the limits of crux situations.