This is the third volume of Donald Davidson's philosophical writings. In this selection of his work from the 1980s and the 90s, Davidson critically examines three types of propositional knowledge—knowledge of one's own mind, knowledge of other people's minds, and knowledge of the external world—by working out the nature and status of each type, and the connections and differences among them. While his main concern remains the relation between language, thought, and reality, Davidson's discussions touch a vast variety of (...) issues in analytic metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, including those of truth, human rationality, and facets of the realism–antirealism debate. (shrink)

The concept of metaphor as primarily a vehicle for conveying ideas, even if unusual ones, seems to me as wrong as the parent idea that a metaphor has a special meaning. I agree with the view that metaphors cannot be paraphrased, but I think this is not because metaphors say something too novel for literal expression but because there is nothing there to paraphrase. Paraphrase, whether possible or not, inappropriate to what is said: we try, in paraphrase, to say it (...) another way. But if I am right, a metaphor doesn't say anything beyond its literal meaning . This is not, of course, to deny that a metaphor has a point, nor that that point can be brought out by using further words. . . . My disagreement is with the explanation of how metaphor works its wonders. To anticipate: I depend on the distinction between what words mean and what they are used to do. I think metaphor belongs exclusively to the domain of use. It is something brought off by the imaginative employment of words and sentences and depends entirely on the ordinary meanings of those words and hence on the ordinary meanings of the sentences they comprise. Donald Davidson is University Professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many important essays, including "Actions, Reasons and Causes," "Causal Relations," and "Truth and Meaning," coauthor of Decision-Making: An Experimental Approach, and coeditor of Words and Objections, Semantics of Natural Language, and The Logic of Grammar. (shrink)

Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning, 2/e is an introductory volume that teaches students to recognize and construct correct deductions. It takes students through all logical steps--from premise to conclusion--and presents appropriate symbols and terms, while giving examples to clarify principles. Logic, 2/e uses models to establish the invalidity of arguments, and includes exercise sets throughout, ranging from easy to challenging. Solutions are provided to selected exercises, and historical remarks discuss major contributions to the theories covered.

Why is understanding causation so important in philosophy and the sciences? Should causation be defined in terms of probability? Whilst causation plays a major role in theories and concepts of medicine, little attempt has been made to connect causation and probability with medicine itself. Causality, Probability, and Medicine is one of the first books to apply philosophical reasoning about causality to important topics and debates in medicine. Donald Gillies provides a thorough introduction to and assessment of competing theories of (...) causality in philosophy, including action-related theories, causality and mechanisms, and causality and probability. Throughout the book he applies them to important discoveries and theories within medicine, such as germ theory; tuberculosis and cholera; smoking and heart disease; the first ever randomized controlled trial designed to test the treatment of tuberculosis; the growing area of philosophy of evidence-based medicine; and philosophy of epidemiology. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in philosophy of science and philosophy of medicine, as well as those working in medicine, nursing and related health disciplines where a working knowledge of causality and probability is required. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence and Scientific Method examines the remarkable advances made in the field of AI over the past twenty years, discussing their profound implications for philosophy. Taking a clear, non-technical approach, Donald Gillies shows how current views on scientific method are challenged by this recent research, and suggests a new framework for the study of logic. Finally, he draws on work by such seminal thinkers as Bacon, Gdel, Popper, Penrose, and Lucas, to address the hotly-contested question of whether computers (...) might become intellectually superior to human beings. (shrink)

This paper explains some of the reasoning behind “Can a Good Philosophical Contribution Be Made Just by Asking a Question?,” a paper which consists solely in its title and which is published in the same issue of the journal as the present paper. The method for explaining that reasoning consists in making available a lightly edited version of a letter the authors sent to the editors when submitting the title-only paper. The editors permitted publication of that paper on the condition (...) that the authors also separately publish a version of that letter; the present paper aims to fulfil that condition. (shrink)

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a global private governance system overseeing the sustainability and biodiversity of the world forestry system through certification of forests and forestry processes and products, and is perceived as the strongest of the various certification schemes available (Domask, Globalization and NGOs: Transforming Business, Government, and Society , 2003 ; Gulbrandsen, Global Environmental Politics , 2004 ). It has seen more success in developed than developing countries in terms of amount of forest certified and number of (...) chain-of-custody certificates issued, raising questions as to its ability to promote biodiversity Gulbrandsen, Global Environmental Politics , 2004 ). A number of challenges have risen to the pragmatic and moral legitimacy of the FSC as a global governance system: alternative certification schemes, output and market access, cost of certification, plantations, and illegal logging. I examine each of these challenges as they pertain to the dimensions of pragmatic and moral legitimacy of the FSC. I conclude with a discussion of theoretical implications for global governance systems using ecolabel schemes, as well as a discussion of practical implications for the FSC in particular. (shrink)

Whitehead's magnum opus is as important as it is difficult. It is the only work in which his metaphysical ideas are stated systematically and completely, and his metaphysics are the heart of his philosophical system as a whole.

Cognitive neuroscientists have anticipated the union of neural and behavioral science with ethics (Gazzaniga 2005). The identification of an ethical rule—the dictum that we should treat others in the manner in which we would like to be treated—apparently widespread among human societies suggests a dependence on fundamental human brain mechanisms. Now, studies of neural and molecular mechanisms that underlie the feeling of fear suggest how this form of ethical behavior is produced. Counterintuitively, a new theory presented here states that it (...) is actually a loss of social information that leads to sharing others' fears with our own, thus allowing us to treat others as we would like to be treated. Adding to that hypothetical mechanism is the well-studied predilection toward affiliative behaviors. Thus, even as Chomsky hypothesizes that humans are predisposed to utter grammatical sentences, we propose that humans are 'wired for reciprocity'. However, these two neural forces supporting ethical behavior do not explain individual or collective violence. At any given moment, the ability to produce behavior that obeys this ethical rule is proposed to depend on a balance between mechanisms for prosocial and antisocial behaviors. That balance results not only from genetic influences on temperament but also from environmental effects particularly during critical neonatal and pubertal periods. (shrink)

This paper sets out to give sufficient detail to the notion of mental simulation to allow an appraisal of its contribution to ‘mindreading’ in the context of the ‘false-belief tasks’ used in developmental psychology. We first describe the reasoning strategy of ‘modified derivation’, which supports counterfactual reasoning. We then give an analysis of the logical structure of the standard false-belief tasks. We then show how modified derivation can be used in a hybrid strategy for mindreading in these tasks. We then (...) formulate the hypothesis that children become able (around the age of 4 years) to pass these tasks when they acquire the counterfactual reasoning ability required in this strategy. We find this to be consistent with various empirical findings. We then discuss the implications for the theory/simulation debate, meta-representation and pretence. (shrink)

Research Ethics Boards (REBs) at universities are chaired and staffed by researchers who serve to enforce codes of ethics by scrutinizing research proposals. Yet there is widespread dissatisfaction with the REB approval process. This article examines the sources of that dissatisfaction, the place for codes of ethics in the conducting of research, the evidence for risk to research participants as the basis for those codes, and the effectiveness of REBs in protecting research participants. We offer suggestions for how REB chairs, (...) members, and researchers can improve the REB approval process so that it is fair and responsive. (shrink)

Proposals to compensate families for transplantable organs are gathering momentum. These proposals assume that the body is not integral to the self—that it can be treated like property. Most people believe otherwise.

International transfers of human biological material (biospecimens) and data are increasing, and commentators are starting to raise concerns about how donor wishes are protected in such circumstances. These exchanges are generally made under contractual material transfer agreements (MTAs). This paper asks what role, if any, should research ethics committees (RECs) play in ensuring legal and ethical conduct in such exchanges. It is recommended that RECs should play a more active role in the future development of best practice MTAs involving exchange (...) of biospecimens and data and in monitoring compliance. (shrink)

By attempting to divorce attributions of value from judgments of the interest of the attributor, developing the concept ofa locus of value, exploring the interconnections between the goods of individuals and the goods of populations and species, and suggesting the reasonableness ofthe attributions of rights to certain sorts of individuals, I try to indicate the degree to which an environmental ethic can be atomisticwithout being anthropocentric.

Beginning with an examination of the Homeric world and continuing with a discussion of the political ideas of the lyric poets from Hesiod to Pindar, the author moves on to a political analysis of the pre-Socratic philosophers, the tragedians, Herdotus, Thucydides, the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans. Finally, the writings of Polybius are examined as a key to understanding the assimilation of Greek political thought into the mainstream of Roman thought.