Equality and identity. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. 19 (2013) 255-6. (Coauthor: Anthony Ramnauth) Also see https://www.academia.edu/s/a6bf02aaab This article uses ‘equals’ [‘is equal to’] and ‘is’ [‘is identical to’, ‘is one and the same as’] as they are used in ordinary exact English. In a logically perfect language the oxymoron ‘the numbers 3 and 2+1 are the same number’ could not be said. Likewise, ‘the number 3 and the number 2+1 are one number’ is just as bad from a logical point (...) of view. In normal English these two sentences are idiomatically taken to express the true proposition that ‘the number 3 is the number 2+1’. Another idiomatic convention that interferes with clarity about equality and identity occurs in discussion of numbers: it is usual to write ‘3 equals 2+1’ when “3 is 2+1” is meant. When ‘3 equals 2+1’ is written there is a suggestion that 3 is not exactly the same number as 2+1 but that they merely have the same value. This becomes clear when we say that two of the sides of a triangle are equal if the two angles they subtend are equal or have the same measure. -/- Acknowledgements: Robert Barnes, Mark Brown, Jack Foran, Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Forest Hansen, David Hitchcock, Spaulding Hoffman, Calvin Jongsma, Justin Legault, Joaquin Miller, Tania Miller, and Wyman Park. -/- ► JOHN CORCORAN AND ANTHONY RAMNAUTH, Equality and identity. Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4150, USA E-mail: [email protected] The two halves of one line are equal but not identical [one and the same]. Otherwise the line would have only one half! Every line equals infinitely many other lines, but no line is [identical to] any other line—taking ‘identical’ strictly here and below. Knowing that two lines equaling a third are equal is useful; the condition “two lines equaling a third” often holds. In fact any two sides of an equilateral triangle is equal to the remaining side! But could knowing that two lines being [identical to] a third are identical be useful? The antecedent condition “two things identical to a third” never holds, nor does the consequent condition “two things being identical”. If two things were identical to a third, they would be the third and thus not be two things but only one. The plural predicate ‘are equal’ as in ‘All diameters of a given circle are equal’ is useful and natural. ‘Are identical’ as in ‘All centers of a given circle are identical’ is awkward or worse; it suggests that a circle has multiple centers. Substituting equals for equals [replacing one of two equals by the other] makes sense. Substituting identicals for identicals is empty—a thing is identical only to itself; substituting one thing for itself leaves that thing alone, does nothing. There are as many types of equality as magnitudes: angles, lines, planes, solids, times, etc. Each admits unit magnitudes. And each such equality analyzes as identity of magnitude: two lines are equal [in length] if the one’s length is identical to the other’s. Tarski [1] hardly mentioned equality-identity distinctions (pp. 54-63). His discussion begins: -/- Among the logical concepts […], the concept of IDENTITY or EQUALITY […] has the greatest importance. -/- Not until page 62 is there an equality-identity distinction. His only “notion of equality”, if such it is, is geometrical congruence—having the same size and shape—an equivalence relation not admitting any unit. Does anyone but Tarski ever say ‘this triangle is equal to that’ to mean that the first is congruent to that? What would motivate him to say such a thing? This lecture treats the history and philosophy of equality-identity distinctions. [1] ALFRED TARSKI, Introduction to Logic, Dover, New York, 1995. [This is expanded from the printed abstract.] . (shrink)

Foreword, by S. Ratner.--Freedom and education, by H. M. Kallen.--Dewey's theory of the nature and function of philosophy, by A. E. Murphy.--Dewey's reconstruction of logical theory, by E. Nagel.--Method in aesthetics, by A. C. Barnes.--The religion of shared experience, by J. H. Randall, Jr.--A Deweyesque mosaic, by W. Hamilton.--Pragmatism as a philosophy of law, by E. W. Patterson.--The political philosophy of instrumentalism, by S. Hu.--Creative democracy, the task before us, by J. Dewey.

No interior do pensamento de Dewey, a gênese da estética merece mais atenção do que lhe é dada na literatura. Um aspecto, em especial, tem sido virtualmente negligenciado — com as notáveis exceções de Robins 2015, Ueno 2016, Hein 2017 e Granger 2018a e 2018b — a saber, os vínculos com Albert Coombs Barnes. Nossa hipótese é que Barnes desempenhou um papel relevante na “virada estética” da filosofia madura de Dewey. Neste artigo, nós tomamos um primeiro passo rumo (...) ao esclarecimento da relação entre eles e uma tentativa de mostrar a influência do colecionador de arte na obra do filósofo. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Cambridge Companion to the StoicsJohn SellarsBrad Inwood, editor. The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. ix + 438. Cloth, $70.00. Paper, $26.00.No doubt everyone will be familiar with the format and rationale of the Cambridge Companion series, each volume being designed to function as a "reference work for students and nonspecialists." Brad Inwood's Cambridge Companion to The Stoics follows the usual (...) plan, offering fifteen essays by an impressive line up of well-known Stoic scholars. The essays fall into four distinct groups. The first group (Sedley, Gill) offers a sketch of the history of the Stoa, and both essays are excellent. Of particular interest is Sedley's challenge to the traditional distinction between the orthodox "early" and eclectic "middle" Stoa (esp. 23-24). The second group (Hankinson, Bobzien, White, Algra, Frede, Brunschwig, Schofield, Brennan) forms the heart of the volume, each essay examining a central topic in Stoic philosophy. While all of these contributions are very good, those by Bobzien, Brunschwig, and Schofield stand out in particular. Hankinson offers a helpful discussion of Stoic epistemology but lapses into anachronistic descriptions at times; the Stoic position is "Lockean," the Stoics are good empiricists in the Humean fashion, they have "Leibnizian metaphysics" (63, 69). Brennan gives a very interesting discussion of Stoic moral psychology, but perhaps pitches it a little too high for a nonspecialist audience. The third group (Hankinson again, Blank and Atherton, Jones) explores the ancient Stoic tradition's relationship with medicine, grammar, and the astronomical sciences. Jones' discussion of the neglected Cleomedes is especially welcome (333-37). The final group (Irwin, Long) considers the reception of Stoic ideas in the Western intellectual tradition. Of these I found Long the more accessible and useful of the two (compare, for instance, their respective discussions of Butler, 357-62 and 382-89), although Irwin will no doubt prove stimulating to those already familiar with the issues he addresses.What is lacking from the collection as a whole, however, is any sense of the systematic unity of Stoic philosophy. While it has inevitably been divided up under various headings for the sake of exposition, there has not been much attempt to put it back together again (like Humpty Dumpty, Stoic philosophy is like an egg; Diogenes Laertius 7.40). Although many individual contributors signal the systematicity of Stoicism, there is no extended discussion of the way in which the various parts of Stoic philosophy fit together, nor how that system relates to the way in which the Stoics conceived philosophy, or their ideal of the Sage. [End Page 337]My principal concerns with the volume as a whole relate to the lack of any supporting material that might prove useful to the student or nonspecialist approaching the subject for the first time. There is no list or chronology of the principal Stoics, nor a guide to the ancient sources for Stoicism. There is a list of primary sources, but this contains all of the primary material cited by the contributors, including works by Aquinas, Butler, Duns Scotus, Hume, Leibniz, and Spinoza. There is no readily accessible table of abbreviations, and what nonspecialist will know that in order to find a text cited as 'S. E. M' they may end up opening a book entitled Against the Logicians (as 'M' 7 and 8 are called in the Loeb Classical Library series)? Some abbreviations are explained within the list of primary sources, but this is not immediately obvious. The bibliography is indeed substantial but it also simply lists the various items cited by the contributors. What might have been more useful in this companion is a structured guide to further reading, such as the one in A. S. McGrade's excellent Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy, for instance. Even better would have been a bibliography along the lines of the one in Jonathan Barnes' Cambridge Companion to Aristotle. One other omission that is striking is the absence of a discussion of methodological problems that arise from relying on often hostile doxographical sources. Although a number of the contributors do touch on such issues en route, a more sustained treatment might have... (shrink)

van der Velde & de Kamps argue for the importance of considering the binding problem in accounts of human mental representation. However, their proposed solution fails as a complete account because it represents the bindings between roles and their fillers through associations (or connections). In addition, many criticisms leveled by the authors towards synchrony-based bindings models do not hold.

The popular belief that religion is the same everywhere or that all religions are ‘at bottom’ identical in essentials is a widespread falsehood that is saved from being completely worthless by the fact that religion does exhibit a universal or common structure wherever it appears. This structure is intimately related to the structure of human life in the world. The enduring pattern that enables us to understand religions widely separated in both time and space depends largely on the fact that (...) man and the process of human life in the world have their own structures which remain, despite the undeniable variety introduced by vast differences of culture, ethnic features, geographical location, climate etc. Structure means pattern or form; it is reality significantly organised. It can be grasped as that which endures above and beyond changing historical details. Because human life has a structure, we are able to understand the wrath of Achilles or sympathise with the love of Abélard for Héloïse although we are separated from both by centuries of time. (shrink)

Despite the title, I do not intend to launch another expedition into the domain of epistemology. I wish instead to call attention to some problems which have arisen for philosophical theologians and philosophers of religion, as a result of two facts about the development of modern philosophy and its bearing on the analysis and interpretation of religious insight. Following these considerations, I shall propose in brief compass a programme for the future which I believe will prove fruitful for the philosophical (...) treatment of religious concerns. (shrink)

This review of Martin Jay’s recent published collection of essays examines his ongoing rethinking, supplementation, and revision of central themes—the negative and positive dialectics of historical totalization, the varieties and uses of conceptions of experience, the nature of visual cultures and scopic regimes, and the ambiguities of truth-construction in the public realm—that have been the focus of his major works since the 1970s. It argues that his more recent work indicates a gradual shift toward an affirmation of the kinds of (...) paratactic and deconstructive thinking of Adorno and Derrida as models for producing appropriate forms of historical consciousness and historical critique in the present, and it raises the question of how the issues of historical truth-telling, consensual collective identity, ethical action, and the cultural role of the critical intellectual are reformulated in this process. (shrink)

_A new theory of how and why we cooperate, drawing from economics, political theory, and philosophy to challenge the conventional wisdom of game theory_ Game theory explains competitive behavior by working from the premise that people are self-interested. People don’t just compete, however; they also cooperate. John Roemer argues that attempts by orthodox game theorists to account for cooperation leave much to be desired. Unlike competing players, cooperating players take those actions that they would like others to take—which Roemer (...) calls “Kantian optimization.” Through rigorous reasoning and modeling, Roemer demonstrates a simpler theory of cooperative behavior than the standard model provides. (shrink)

This book presents a detailed fieldwork-based study of the ancient Indian religion of Jainism. Drawing on field research in northern Gujarat and on the study of both ancient Sanskrit and Prakrit and modern vernacular Jain religious literature, John Cort provides a rounded portrait of the religion as it is practiced today.

This essay seeks to link management action with business ethics. It utilizes two conceptual models of decision making to examine the important processes of information gathering and information processing. This analysis is then related to the ethical aspects of a business decision to help explain differences in the selection of ethical criteria.

Examines Arthur Schopenhauer's (1788-1860) conception of human agency and responsibility, his unique ethics of the morally virtuous character, and his assessment of life as fundamentally suffering. This title focuses on his contention that the human will and the human body cannot have a cause and effect relationship with each other.

As a work of a scholarship it seems to me to compare favourably with the best books on the subject, including those by Marcus Singer and Onora Nell.' Prof.

Utilitarians, maximinners, prioritarians, and sufficientarians each provide examples of situations demonstrating, often apparently compellingly, that a sensible ethical observer must adopt their view and reject the others. I argue, to the contrary, that an attractive ethic is eclectic or pluralistic, in the sense of coinciding with these apparently different views in different regions of the space of social states. I reject the view that an appealing ethic can be universally maximin, prioritarian, or utilitarian. Key Words: distributive justice • utilitarianism • (...) maximin • sufficiency • priority. (shrink)