99 found
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  1. Explaining Explanation.David-Hillel Ruben - 1990 - Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
    This book introduces readers to the topic of explanation. The insights of Plato, Aristotle, J.S. Mill and Carl Hempel are examined, and are used to argue against the view that explanation is merely a problem for the philosophy of science. Having established its importance for understanding knowledge in general, the book concludes with a bold and original explanation of explanation.
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  2.  53
    Varieties of Social Explanation: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Science.David-Hillel Ruben & Daniel Little - 1993 - Philosophical Review 102 (1):120.
  3. The Metaphysics of Action: Trying, Doing, Causing.David-Hillel Ruben - 2018 - London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    A discussion of three central ideas in action theory; trying to act, doing or acting, one's action causing further consequences.
  4.  26
    (2 other versions)The Metaphysics of the Social World.David-Hillel Ruben - 1985 - Philosophy 61 (237):421-423.
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  5. The metaphysics of the social world.David-Hillel Ruben - 1985 - London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
    A careful elaboration and defence of holism in the philosophy of the social sciences, with regard both to particulars and properties. The last chapter addresses the issue of the irreducibility of holistic explanation in the social sciences.
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  6. A conditional theory of trying.David-Hillel Ruben - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (1):271-287.
    What I shall do in this paper is to propose an analysis of ‘Agent P tries to A’ in terms of a subjunctive conditional, that avoids some of the problems that beset most alternative accounts of trying, which I call ‘referential views’. They are so-named because on these alternative accounts, ‘P tries to A’ entails that there is a trying to A by P, and therefore the expression ‘P’s trying to A’ can occur in the subject of a sentence and (...)
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  7. The Physical Action Theory of Trying.David-Hillel Ruben - 2015 - Methode 4 (6).
    Metaphysically speaking, just what is trying? There appear to be two options: to place it on the side of the mind or on the side of the world. Volitionists, who think that to try is to engage in a mental act, perhaps identical to willing and perhaps not, take the mind-side option. The second, or world-side option identifies trying to do something with one of the more basic actions by which one tries to do that thing. The trying is then (...)
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  8. Traditions and True Successors.David-Hillel Ruben - 2013 - Social Epistemology 27 (1):32 - 46.
    What constitutes numerically one and the same tradition diachronically, at different times? This question is the focus of often violent dispute in societies. Is it capable of a rational resolution? Many accounts attempt that resolution with a diagnosis of ambiguity of the disputed concept-Islam, Marxism, or democracy for example. The diagnosis offered is in terms of vagueness, namely the vague criteria for sameness or similarity of central beliefs and practices.
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  9. Reply to ‘attempts’: a non-davidsonian account of trying sentences.David-Hillel Ruben - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (12):3817-3830.
    In various of my writings, both in Philosophical Studies and elsewhere, I have argued that an account of trying sentences is available that does not require quantification over alleged attempts or tryings. In particular, adverbial modification in such sentences can be dealt with, without quantification over any such particulars. In ‘Attempts’, Jonathan D. Payton (Payton, 2021) has sought to dispute my claim. In this paper, I consider his claims and reply to them. I believe that my account withstands such scrutiny.
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  10. Action and Its Explanation.David-Hillel Ruben - 2003 - Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
    Book synopsis: David-Hillel Ruben's new book pursues some novel and unusual standpoints in the philosophy of action. He rejects, for example, the most widely held view about how to count actions, and argues for what he calls a 'prolific theory' of act individuation. He also describes and argues against the two leading theories of the nature of action, the causal theory and the agent causal theory. The causal theory cannot account for skilled activity, nor for mental action. The agent causalist (...)
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  11.  25
    (1 other version)Explaining contrastive facts.David-Hillel Ruben - 1986 - Analysis 46 (4):35-37.
  12. Social wholes and parts.David-Hillel Ruben - 1983 - Mind 92 (366):219-238.
    To what extend can genuinely mereological considerations apply to talk of wholes and parts in discussions of the relationship between individual persons and the social groups, etc. to which they belong?
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  13.  80
    Responses to Critics of The Construction of Social Reality.David-Hillel Ruben - 1997 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (2):449-458.
  14.  27
    Marxism and Materialism: A Study in Marxist Theory of Knowledge.David-Hillel Ruben - 1977 - Science and Society 44 (3):360-363.
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  15. Trying in Some Way.David-Hillel Ruben - 2013 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (4):719-733.
    Does 'Person P tried to A' entail that there is some particular, whether a mental act or a brain state or whatever, that is a trying? Most discussions of trying assume that this entailment holds. There is no good reason for holding that this is a valid inference. In particular, I examine one 'Davidsonian' argument that might be used to justify the validity of such an inference and argue that the argument is not sound. See: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/IxsuPqt7rvdzqMxpFiTv/full.
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  16. W.B. Gallie and Essentially Contested Concepts.David-Hillel Ruben - 2010 - Philosophical Papers 39 (2):257-270.
    In virtue of what are later and an earlier group members of one and the numerically same tradition? Gallie was one of the few philosophers to have engaged with issues surrounding this question. My article is not a faithful exegesis of Gallie but develops a terminology in which to discuss issues surrounding the numerical identity of a tradition over time, based on some of his insights.
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  17. A counterfactual theory of causal explanation.David-Hillel Ruben - 1994 - Noûs 28 (4):465-481.
    An analysis of causal explanation, using counterfactuals and omitting laws or lawlike generalisations.
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  18. Action and Its Explanation.David-Hillel Ruben & G. F. Schueler - 2005 - Philosophical Quarterly 55 (218):139-142.
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  19. Marxism and materialism: a study in Marxist theory of knowledge.David-Hillel Ruben - 1977 - Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.
    Argument that Marx has a realist ontology and a correspondence theory of truth. His views are compared to both Hegel's and Kant's. This interpretation departs from more Hegelian, 'idealist' interpretations that often rely on misunderstanding some of the work of the early Marx. There is also a discussion and partial defence of Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.
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  20.  84
    A puzzle about posthumous predication.David-Hillel Ruben - 1988 - Philosophical Review 97 (2):211-236.
  21.  50
    Realism in the Social Sciences.David-Hillel Ruben - 1989 - In Hilary Lawson & Lisa Appignanesi (eds.), Dismantling Truth: Reality in the Post-modern World. London: Weidenfeld.
  22. Mental Overpopulation and the Problem of Action.David-Hillel Ruben - 1995 - Journal of Philosophical Research 20:111-124.
  23. Disjunctive theories of perception and action.David-Hillel Ruben - 2008 - In Adrian Haddock & Fiona Macpherson (eds.), Disjunctivism: perception, action, knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 227--243.
    A comparison of disjunctive theories of action and perception. The development of a theory of action that warrants the name, a disjunctive theory. On this theory, there is an exclusive disjunction: either an action or an event (in one sense). It follows that in that sense basic actions do not have events intrinsic to them.
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  24.  43
    Explanation.David-Hillel Ruben (ed.) - 1993 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    The aim of this series is to bring together important recent writings in major areas of philosophical inquiry, selected from a variety of sources, mostly periodicals, which may not be conveniently available to the university student or the general reader. The editor of each volume contributes an introductory essay on the items chosen and on the questions with which they deal. A selective bibliography is appended as a guide to further reading. This volume presents a selection of the most important (...)
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  25.  69
    Collocation and Constitution.David-Hillel Ruben - 2021 - Metaphysica 22 (2):251-261.
    Many philosophers accept the view that, when one object constitutes a second, the two objects can be entirely in the same place at the same time. But what of two objects such that neither constitutes the other? Can they be collocated? If there can be such a pair of objects, they would have to share the same material constituents. To show that there are two collocated objects and not just one object at a specific time and place, one has to (...)
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  26. (1 other version)Explanation.David-Hillel Ruben - 1995 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 185 (3):379-380.
     
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  27.  37
    From Rousseau to Lenin: Studies in Ideology and Science.David-Hillel Ruben, Lucio Colletti, John Merrington & Judith White - 1973 - Philosophical Quarterly 23 (93):377.
  28. Con-reasons as causes.David-Hillel Ruben - 2009 - In Constantine Sandis (ed.), New essays on the explanation of action. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 62--74.
    Book synopsis: This collection of previously unpublished essays presents the newest developments in the thought of international scholars working on the explanation of action. The contributions focus on a wide range of interlocking issues relating to agency, deliberation, motivation, mental causation, teleology, interprative explanation and the ontology of actions and their reasons. Challenging numerous current orthodoxies, and offering positive suggestions from a variety of different perspectives, this book provides essential reading for anyone interested in the explanation of action.
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  29. (1 other version)Introduction.David-Hillel Ruben - 1993 - In Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.
     
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  30.  76
    The Thought of Karl Marx: An Introduction.David-Hillel Ruben & David McLellan - 1973 - Philosophical Quarterly 23 (90):79.
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  31. The existence of social entities.David-Hillel Ruben - 1982 - Philosophical Quarterly 32 (129):295-310.
  32. Act individuation: the Cambridge theory.David-Hillel Ruben - 1999 - Analysis 59 (4):276-283.
  33. Positive and Natural Law Revisited.David-Hillel Ruben - 1972 - Modern Schoolman 49 (4):295-317.
    The article argues that the famous debate on natural and positive law between Lon Fuller and HLA Hart rests on a dispute about whether or not that something is a law provides on its own a prima facie reason for doing something.
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  34. Prime Cuts and the Method of Recombination.David-Hillel Ruben - 2022 - Episteme 19 (1):21-30.
    Whether some condition is equivalent to a conjunction of some conditions has been a major issue in analytic philosophy. Examples include: knowledge, acting freely, causation, and justice. Philosophers have striven to offer analyses of these, and other concepts, by showing them equivalent to such a conjunction. Timothy Williamson offers a number of arguments for the idea that knowledge is ‘prime’, hence not equivalent to or composed by some such conjunction. I focus on one of his arguments: the requirement that such (...)
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  35. Multifunctional Artefacts and Collocation.David-Hillel Ruben - 2022 - Metaphysics 5 (1):66-77.
    There appear to be multifunctional artefacts of a type such that none of their functions can be attributed only to some proper part of the artefact. I use two examples of allegedly multifunctional artefacts of this kind in what follows, one due to Lynne Rudder Baker (aspirin) and another of my own (a spork). The two examples are meant to make the same point. I discuss her aspirin example, since its discussion has entered the literature, but without its being dealt (...)
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  36. Lewis and the Problem of Causal Sufficiency.David-Hillel Ruben - 1980 - Analysis 41 (1):38-41.
    Lewis' counterfactual account of deterministic causation has no way in which to represent causal sufficiency. In the case in which the cause and effect actually occur, the conditional, c box-arrow e is trivially true, equivalent to the material conditional. Yet in deterministic causation, one needs a notion of causal sufficiency that is stronger than that.
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  37.  39
    Explanation in the Social Sciences: Singular Explanation and the Social Sciences.David-Hillel Ruben - 1990 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 27:95-117.
    Are explanations in the social sciences fundamentally different from explanations in the natural sciences? Many philosophers think that they are, and I call such philosophers ‘difference theorists’. Many difference theorists locate that difference in the alleged fact that only in the natural sciences does explanation essentially include laws.
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  38.  48
    Singular explanation and the social sciences.David-Hillel Ruben - 1990 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 15 (1):130-149.
  39. Social Properties (Facts and Entities): Philosophical Aspects.David-Hillel Ruben - 2001 - In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier.
  40. Beyond Supervenience and Construction.David-Hillel Ruben - 2014 - Journal of Social Ontology 1 (1):121-141.
    If reduction of the social to the physical fail, what options remain for understanding their relationship? Two such options are supervenience and constructivism. Both are vitiated by a similar fault. So the choices are limited: reduction after all, or emergence.
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  41. On Searle.David-Hillel Ruben - 1997 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (2):443-447.
    Some problems in John Searle's The Construction of Social Reality. I express some doubts about his constitutive v. regulative rule distinction, and press some objections against his unanalysed idea of acceptance or agreement.
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  42. The Causal and Deliberative Strength of Reasons for Action.David-Hillel Ruben - 2010 - In Jesús Humberto Aguilar & Andrei A. Buckareff (eds.), Causing Human Actions: New Perspectives on the Causal Theory of Action. Bradford.
    Is the thought that having a reason for action can also be the cause of the action for which it is the reason coherent? This is an attempt to say exactly what is involved in such a thought, with special reference to the case of con-reasons, reasons that count against the action the agent eventually choses.
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  43. Causal Scepticism or Invisible Cement.David-Hillel Ruben - 1982 - Ratio (Misc.) 24 (2):161.
    I defend the view, hardly original with me, that there is no evidence, deductive or non-deductive, for any of our causal beliefs, that does not already assume that there are some causal connections, and hence that there is no way in which experience on its own, or with causalität-free principles, can support the structure of out causal knowledge. The deductive case is perhaps obvious. In the case of non-deductive arguments, I consider how experience of constant conjunctions, together with the employment (...)
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  44. going in circles.David-Hillel Ruben - 2009 - In Chrysostomos Mantzavinos (ed.), Philosophy of the social sciences: philosophical theory and scientific practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 312.
    What might it mean to say that there is such a thing as a hermeneutic circle in the social sciences? A consideration of some remarks by Charles Taylor and others and an interpretive reconstruction, and assessment, of the idea of such a circle.
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  45.  60
    II*—Social Properties and their Basis.David-Hillel Ruben - 1985 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 85 (1):23-46.
    David-Hillel Ruben; II*—Social Properties and their Basis, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 June 1985, Pages 23–46, https://doi.or.
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  46. Warnock on rules.David-Hillel Ruben - 1972 - Philosophical Quarterly 22 (89):349-354.
    A discussion of Geoffrey Warnock's views on the analysis of rules.
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  47. Philosophy of the Social Sciences.David-Hillel Ruben - 1998 - In A. GraylingOxford University Press (ed.), Philosophy: A Guide Through the Subject vol. 2.
    Book synopsis: This is the first volume of a two-volume introduction to and guide through philosophy. It is intended to orientate, assist, and stimulate the reader at every stage in the study of the subject. Eleven extended essays have been specially commissioned from leading philosophers; each surveys a major area of the subject and offers an accessible but sophisticated account of the main debates. An extended introduction maps out the philosophical terrain and explains how the different subjects relate to each (...)
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  48. One-particularism in the theory of action.David-Hillel Ruben - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (11):2677-2694.
    In this paper, I intend to introduce what I think is a novel proposal in the metaphysics of action: one-particularism. In order to do so, I must first explain two ideas: a concept in the semantics of English that many philosophers of action take to be of great importance in action theory, causative alternation; and the idea of an intrinsic event. By attempting to understand the role that intrinsic events are meant to play in action theory, I then introduce my (...)
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  49. Simple Attentive Miscalculation.David-Hillel Ruben - 1992 - Analysis 52 (3):184-190.
  50. Explaining Explanation, second edition.David-Hillel Ruben - 2012 - Boulder, CO, USA: Paradigm Press.
    This is an updated and expansed edition of the 1990 Explaining Explanation, Routledge.
     
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