Locke wrote Draft A of the Essay while collaborating with physician Thomas Sydenham. Sydenham held that we are ignorant of nature's internal workings, cannot decide which natural philosophical theories are true and should therefore rely only upon experience. Draft A repeated Sydenham's views — we cannot understand nature's modus operandi and must rely on experience for our knowledge of the world. Equally, we must be agnostic about natural philosophical theories, mechanism included. Locke was not a mechanist in Draft A. Consequently, (...) Locke's account of substance, first articulated in this Draft and repeated in the Essay, was completely independent of the mechanical philosophy. (shrink)

Consequence is at the heart of logic; an account of consequence, of what follows from what, offers a vital tool in the evaluation of arguments. Since philosophy itself proceeds by way of argument and inference, a clear view of what logical consequence amounts to is of central importance to the whole discipline. In this book JC Beall and Greg Restall present and defend what thay call logical pluralism, the view that there is more than one genuine deductive consequence relation, a (...) position which has profound implications for many linguists as well as for philosophers. We should not search for one true logic, since there are many. (shrink)

The fundamental problem of Christology is the apparent contradiction of Christ as recorded at Chalcedon. Christ is human and Christ is divine. Being divine entails being immutable. Being human entails being mutable. Were Christ two different persons there’d be no apparent contradiction. But Chalcedon rules as much out. Were Christ only partly human or only partly divine there’d be no apparent contradiction. But Chalcedon rules as much out. Were the very meaning of ‘mutable’ and/or ‘immutable’ other than what they are, (...) there’d be no apparent contradiction. But the meaning is what it is, and changing the meaning of our terms to avoid the apparent contradiction of Christ is an apparent flight from reality. What, in the end, is the explanation of the apparent contradiction of Christ? Theologians and philosophers have long advanced many consistency-seeking answers, all of which increase the metaphysical or semantical complexity of the otherwise strikingly simple but radical core of Christianity’s GodMan. In this paper, I put the simplest explanation on the theological table: namely, Christ appears to be contradictory because Christ is contradictory. This explanation may sound complicated to the many who are steeped in the mainstream account of logic according to which logic precludes the possibility of true contradictions. But the mainstream account of logic can and should be rejected. Ridding theology of the dogma of mainstream logic illuminates the simple though striking explanation of the apparent contradiction of Christ — namely, that Christ is a contradictory being. Just as the simplest explanation to the apparent roundness of the earth has earned due acceptance, so too should the simplest explanation of the apparent contradiction of Christ. (shrink)

Consequence is at the heart of logic; an account of consequence, of what follows from what, offers a vital tool in the evaluation of arguments. Since philosophy itself proceeds by way of argument and inference, a clear view of what logical consequence amounts to is of central importance to the whole discipline. In this book JC Beall and Greg Restall present and defend what thay call logical pluralism, the view that there is more than one genuine deductive consequence relation, a (...) position which has profound implications for many linguists as well as for philosophers. We should not search for one true logic, since there are many. (shrink)

The Law of Non-Contradiction - that no contradiction can be true - has been a seemingly unassailable dogma since the work of Aristotle, in Book G of the Metaphysics. It is an assumption challenged from a variety of angles in this collection of original papers. Twenty-three of the world's leading experts investigate the 'law', considering arguments for and against it and discussing methodological issues that arise whenever we question the legitimacy of logical principles. The result is a balanced inquiry into (...) a venerable principle of logic, one that raises questions at the very centre of logic itself. The aim of this volume is to present a comprehensive debate about the Law of Non-Contradiction, from discussions as to how the law is to be understood, to reasons for accepting or re-thinking the law, and to issues that raise challenges to the law, such as the Liar Paradox, and a 'dialetheic' resolution of that paradox. The editors contribute an introduction which surveys the issues and serves to frame the debate, and a useful bibliography offering a guide to further reading. This volume will be of interest to anyone working on philosophical logic, and to anyone who has ever wondered about the status of logical laws and about how one might proceed to mount arguments for or against them. (shrink)

English summary: Criticism is often levelled at Hegel's philosophy of the absolute spirit for its being conceived at the expense of the world. In view of this, Hegel's regular reference to a world in the Phenomenology of Spirit is somewhat puzzling. How then are we to understand the presence of the world, or even numerous worlds? Tereza Matejckova contends that at every stage of its journey, consciousness designs a new world-model, each built on central concepts of the respective form of (...) consciousness. Consciousness thus finds itself in a world of contradiction, of life, of struggle, or one of unhappy diremption. The point of absolute knowledge is not that the world is now derived from consciousness itself, but rather that it conceives a world-model that corresponds with reality, as whose reflection it itself now grasps. German description: Oft wird gegen Hegel der Vorwurf erhoben, seine Philosophie des absoluten Geistes sei auf Kosten der Welt konzipiert. Umso auffallender ist, dass Hegel in der Phanomenologie des Geistes nahezu auf jeder Ebene auf eine Welt zu sprechen kommt. Wie ist diese Gegenwart der Welt, sogar einer Mehrzahl von Welten zu deuten? Tereza Matejckova behauptet, dass das Bewusstsein auf jeder Ebene seiner Genese ein Weltmodell entwirft, in dessen Zentrum Schlusselbegriffe der einschlagigen Bewusstseinsgestalt stehen. Das Bewusstsein findet sich somit in einer Welt des Widerspruchs, des Lebens, des Kampfes oder der unglucklichen Entzweiung wieder. Pointe des absoluten Wissens ist nicht, dass das Bewusstsein nun die Welt aus sich selbst ableitet, sondern dass es ein der Wirklichkeit entsprechendes Weltmodell konzipiert, als dessen Widerschein es sich selbst erfasst. (shrink)

In this paper, we distinguish two versions of Curry's paradox: c-Curry, the standard conditional-Curry paradox, and v-Curry, a validity-involving version of Curry's paradox that isn’t automatically solved by solving c-curry. A unified treatment of curry paradox thus calls for a unified treatment of both c-Curry and v-Curry. If, as is often thought, c-Curry paradox is to be solved via non-classical logic, then v-Curry may require a lesson about the structure—indeed, the substructure—of the validity relation itself.

It is clear throughout Cognitive Gadgets Heyes believes the development of cognitive capacities results from the interaction of genes and experience. However, she opposes cognitive instincts theorists to her own view that uniquely human capacities are cognitive gadgets. Instinct theorists believe that cognitive capacities are substantially produced by selection, with the environment playing a triggering role. Heyes’s position is that humans have similar general learning capacities to those present across taxa, and that sophisticated human cognition is substantially created by our (...) socioculturally transmitted environment. It is a core strategy of Heyes to provide evidence of learning altering a cognitive capacity to conclude that a capacity is a cognitive gadget and not an instinct. We draw on recent work on the evolution of learning preparedness to examine the adequacy of this strategy. In particular, we analyse experimental evolution work showing how selection affects cognition within the laboratory. First, this work reveals that change due to learning can still be retained under genetic assimilation. This suggests that domain-specific adaptation can coexist with learning, moderate nativism, an option missed by the instinct versus gadget distinction. Second, we describe the conditions that select for increased preparedness in learning: certainty, reliability, and particular costs. We consider how these conditions can be used when conducting evolutionary reasoning about cognition, applying them to the important capacity for imitation. We find that the conditions lend theoretical support to moderate nativism about the capacity to imitate, which is supported by psychological evidence. (shrink)

Three leading philosopher-logicians present a clear and concise overview of formal theories of truth, explaining key logical techniques. Truth is as central topic in philosophy: formal theories study the connections between truth and logic, including the intriguing challenges presented by paradoxes like the Liar.