The rise of a new bureaucratic ruling class in Russia in the 1930s and 1940s artificially inflated the stock of some critics of the social democratic movement who saw it as the beginning of a dictatorship of “intellectuals” over an untutored working class. What these critics have in common is that: 1) they developed their critique from a “left” or “libertarian” perspective, accusing the socialists of betraying their goals and deceiving their followers; 2) they were not pro-capitalist apologists; and, 3) (...) their writings are relatively inaccessible. Consequendy, the authoritarian nature of their politics has tended to remain hidden. When their politics are carefully examined, however, their reputation fades. (shrink)

In 1931 the mathematical logician Kurt Godel published a revolutionary paper that challenged certain basic assumptions underpinning mathematics and logic. A colleague of Albert Einstein, his theorem proved that mathematics was partly based on propositions not provable within the mathematical system and had radical implications that have echoed throughout many fields. A gripping combination of science and accessibility, _Godel’s Proof_ by Nagel and Newman is for both mathematicians and the idly curious, offering those with a taste for logic and philosophy (...) the chance to satisfy their intellectual curiosity. (shrink)

The book combines philosophical exposition and legal analysis, and pays special attention to issues of tort law.

In “Tracking, Competence, and Knowledge,” Ernest Sosa notes that in attempting to account for the conditions for knowledge, externalists have proposed that the justification condition be replaced or supplemented by the requirement that a certain modal relation be obtained between a fact and a subject's belief concerning that fact. While assessing attempts to identify such a relation, he focuses on an account labeled “Cartesian‐tracking”, which accounts for the relation in the form of two conditionals. If a person S believes (...) a proposition P → P P → S believes P. Sosa suggests that be abandoned as a requirement, and that, equipped with his modifications, can offer promising results in connection with skepticism. He argues that modified coupled with the requirement that S's belief be “virtuous” can illuminate the nature of propositional knowledge. (shrink)

Mossner's Life of David Hume remains the standard biography of this great thinker and writer. First published in 1954, and updated in 1980, it is now reissued in paperback in response to increased interest in Hume. E. C. Mossner was Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. 'Mossner's work is a quite remarkable scholarly achievement; it will be an indispensable tool for Hume scholars and a treasure-trove of information for all students of the intellectual and literary (...) history of the eighteenth century' Richard H. Popkin in the Philological Quarterly. (shrink)

Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this highly successful textbook continues to represent the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in metaphysics. In addition to updated material from the first edition, it presents entirely new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of material objects. One of the most comprehensive and authoritative metaphysics anthologies available - now updated and expanded Offers the most important contemporary works on the central issues of metaphysics Includes new sections on ontology and the metaphysics (...) of material objects, as well as readings on the topics of fictionalism, fundamentality, tropes, vague identity, temporary intrinsics, stage theory, and composition Surpasses other anthologies in its combination of contributions from leading metaphysicians and a younger generation of "rising-stars". (shrink)

Bertrand Russell, in the second of his 1914 Lowell lectures, Our Knowledge of the External World, asserted famously that ‘every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and purification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical’ (Russell 1993, p. 42). He went on to characterize that portion of logic that concerned the study of forms of propositions, or, as he (...) called them, ‘logical forms’. This portion of logic he called ‘philosophical logic’. Russell asserted that ... some kind of knowledge of logical forms, though with most people it is not explicit, is involved in all understanding of discourse. It is the business of philosophical logic to extract this knowledge from its concrete integuments, and to render it explicit and pure. (p. 53) Perhaps no one still endorses quite this grand a view of the role of logic and the investigation of logical form in philosophy. But talk of logical form retains a central role in analytic philosophy. Given its widespread use in philosophy and linguistics, it is rather surprising that the concept of logical form has not received more attention by philosophers than it has. The concern of this paper is to say something about what talk of logical form comes to, in a tradition that stretches back to (and arguably beyond) Russell’s use of that expression. This will not be exactly Russell’s conception. For we do not endorse Russell’s view that propositions are the bearers of logical form, or that appeal to propositions adds anything to our understanding of what talk of logical form comes to. But we will be concerned to provide an account responsive to the interests expressed by Russell in the above quotations, though one clarified of extraneous elements, and expressed precisely. For this purpose, it is important to note that the concern expressed by Russell in the above passages, as the surrounding text makes clear, is a concern not just with logic conceived narrowly as the study of logical terms, but with propositional form more generally, which includes, e.g., such features as those that correspond to the number of argument places in a propositional function, and the categories of objects which propositional.... (shrink)

Utterances in situated activity are about the world. Theories and systems normally capture this by assuming references must be resolved to real-world entities in utterance understanding. We describe a number of puzzles and problems for this approach, and propose an alternative semantic representation using discourse relations that link utterances to the nonlinguistic context to capture the context-dependent interpretation of situated utterances. Our approach promises better empirical coverage and more straightforward system building. Substantiating these advantages is work in progress.

This Handbook represents a collective exploration of the emerging field of applied philosophy of language. The volume covers a broad range of areas where philosophy engages with linguistic aspects of our social world, including such hot topics as dehumanizing speech, dogwhistles, taboo language, pornography, appropriation, implicit bias, speech acts, and the ethics of communication. An international line-up of contributors adopt a variety of approaches and methods in their investigation of these linguistic phenomena, drawing on linguistics and the human and social (...) sciences as well as on different philosophical subdisciplines. The aim is to map out fruitful areas of research and to stimulate discussion with thought-provoking essays by leading and emerging philosophers. (shrink)

This chapter takes up, in six sections, issues of realism and of ontological and conceptual relativity. Section 1 briefly lays out the kind of absolutist realism of interest in what follows. Section 2 considers arguments against ordinary commonsense entities such as bodies, and for the view that subjects enjoy a superior ontological position. No such argument is found persuasive. I find no good argument against ordinary bodies or other common-sense entities, nor any good argument that subjects enjoy any ontological superiority. (...) Section 3 lays out three options in ontology, opts for a kind of conceptual relativism, and takes up three problems for the proposed view. Section 4 then offers a compromise position based on a kind of existential relativity meant to accommodate our most settled beliefs about what there is, while retaining a fundamentally realist and objectivist ontology. The main argument of that section relies on a distinction between semantical relativity and ontological relativity. Section 5 defends my use of the semantical-ontological distinction against objections to it in the recent literature. Section 6, in conclusion, takes up arguments for the view that, as subjects of consciousness and thought, we must after all occupy a special ontological position in objective reality, one whose status remains mysterious. (shrink)

This paper considers the place of reasons in the metaphysics of epistemic normativity and defends a middle ground between two popular extremes in the literature. Against members of the ‘reasons first’ movement, we argue that reasons are not the sole fundamental constituents of epistemic normativity. We suggest instead that the virtue-theoretic property of competence is the key building block. To support this approach, we note that reasons must be possessed to play a role in the analysis of central epistemically normative (...) properties, and argue that the relation of possession must be analyzed in terms of competence. But while we diverge with reasons-firsters on this score, we also distance ourselves from those who deny reasons any important role in epistemology. For we maintain that possessed reasons do help to ground deontic facts in the epistemic domain (e.g., facts about what one epistemically ought to believe, may believe, or is justified in believing). Indeed, we present an argument that the possession of sufficient epistemic reasons is necessary and sufficient for propositional justification, and that proper basing on such reasons yields doxastic justification. But since possession and proper basing are themselves grounded in competence, reasons are not the end of the explanatory road: competence enables them to do their work, putting them—and us—in the middle. (shrink)

THE INDICATIVE CONDITIONAL. A PROBABILISTIC CRITERION OF SOUNDNESS FOR DEDUCTIVE INFERENCES Our objective in this section is to establish a prima facie case ...

A seminal work on the unconscious and its mechanisms. Examines the interaction between voluntary (conscious) and involuntary (unconscious) human control mechanisms in terms of dissociation of divided consciousness. Delineates a neodissociation interpretation that recognizes historical roots without requiring commitment. Presents a wide range of data on possession states, fugues, multiple personalities, amnesia, dreams, hallucinations, automatic writing, and aggressions.

Highlights • Historic site-based laboratory work should be an essential part of the preparation of pre-service teachers. • Integrating historic sites into teacher education programs does not require significant outside funding or massive program overhauls. • Provides models for integrating history laboratory work into existing teacher education program structures.

The standard use of the propositional calculus ('P.C.?) in analyzing the validity of inferences involving conditionals leads to fallacies, and the problem is to determine where P.C. may be ?safely? used. An alternative analysis of criteria of reasonableness of inferences in terms of conditions of justification rather than truth of statements is proposed. It is argued, under certain restrictions, that P. C. may be safely used, except in inferences whose conclusions are conditionals whose antecedents are incompatible with the premises in (...) the sense that if the antecedent became known, some of the previously asserted premises would have to be withdrawn. (shrink)

Originally published in 1975 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, this volume introduces phenomenological psychology and is intended for the beginning student as well as for professionals in the field. It includes the historical status of the major concepts mentioned, a brief summary of the major philosophical contributions of phenomenology, and numerous references for further investigation.

This book is meant to be a primer, that is, an introduction, to probability logic, a subject that appears to be in its infancy. Probability logic is a subject envisioned by Hans Reichenbach and largely created by Adams. It treats conditionals as bearers of conditional probabilities and discusses an appropriate sense of validity for arguments such conditionals, as well as ordinary statements as premisses. This is a clear well-written text on the subject of probability logic, suitable for advanced undergraduates or (...) graduates, but also of interest to professional philosophers. There are well-thought-out exercises, and a number of advanced topics treated in appendices, while some are brought up in exercises and some are alluded to only in footnotes. By this means, it is hoped that the reader will at least be made aware of most of the important ramifications of the subject and its tie-ins with current research, and will have some indications concerning recent and relevant literature. (shrink)

Originally published in 1975 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, this volume introduces phenomenological psychology and is intended for the beginning student as well as for professionals in the field. It includes the historical status of the major concepts mentioned, a brief summary of the major philosophical contributions of phenomenology, and numerous references for further investigation.

This is a new release of the original 1927 edition.

The purpose of this note is to dispute Michael Ayers' claim that "there is no special problem of subjunctive conditionals".

Ernest Lepore and Kirk Ludwig present the definitive critical exposition of the philosophical system of Donald Davidson. Davidson 's ideas had a deep and broad influence in the central areas of philosophy; he presented them in brilliant essays over four decades, but never set out explicitly the overarching scheme in which they all have their place. Lepore's and Ludwig's book will therefore be the key work, besides Davidson 's own, for understanding one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth (...) century. (shrink)

Each of these 28 essays is part of a comprehensive program to address questions about language, mind, action, and their interconnections. (Philosophy).

The commonplace view about metaphorical interpretation is that it can be characterized in traditional semantic and pragmatic terms, thereby assimilating metaphor to other familiar uses of language. We will reject this view, and propose in its place the view that, though metaphors can issue in distinctive cognitive and discourse effects, they do so without issuing in metaphorical meaning and truth, and so, without metaphorical communication. Our inspiration derives from Donald Davidson’s critical arguments against metaphorical meaning and Richard Rorty’s exploration of (...) the diverse uses of language. But unlike these authors we ground our discussion squarely in distinctions about causal mechanisms in cooperative activity developed by H.P. Grice and others. (shrink)

The work of Donald Davidson (1917-2003) transformed the study of meaning. Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, two of the world's leading authorities on Davidson's work, present the definitive study of his widely admired and influential program of truth-theoretic semantics for natural languages, giving an exposition and critical examination of its foundations and applications.