The so-called “disquotational theory of truth” has not previously been developed much beyond the thesis that saying, for example, that ‘Snow is white’ is true amounts only to saying that snow is white. Marian David has set out to see what further sense can be made of the disquotational theory, and to compare its merits with those of correspondence theories of truth. His prognosis is that an intelligible disquotational theory of truth can be developed but will suffer from drastic shortcomings (...) that make it all but unusable. (shrink)

Two decades of literature and discussion on the topic of therapist-client sexual relationships have revealed much about the nature and consequences of these relationships and have produced an explicit prohibition against such relationships in American Psychological Association (APA) Ethical Principle 6a. This article reviews the literature as it relates to the ethically gray area of sex with former clients. The relative lack of an empirical basis for extending the prohibition of Principle 6a to posttermination relationships is noted. This article describes (...) concepts from three theoretical perspectives about psychotherapy that support an extension of the prohibition to sexual relationships with ex-clients. (shrink)

A key premise of the kalam cosmological argument is that the universe began to exist. However, while a number of philosophers have offered powerful criticisms of William Lane Craig’s defense of the premise, J.P. Moreland has also offered a number of unique arguments in support of it, and to date, little attention has been paid to these in the literature. In this paper, I attempt to go some way toward redressing this matter. In particular, I shall argue that Moreland’s philosophical (...) arguments against the possibility of traversing a beginningless past are unsuccessful. (shrink)

Excerpt from La Théorie Platonicienne des Idées Et des Nombres d'Après Aristote: Étude Historique Et Critique La théorie phtonioionno de l'amour. Vol. Ia-8 de la Collection historique des grands philosophes 3 fr. 75. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the (...) aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

In Kantian philosophy, the term “condition of possibility” is central, but carries the following ambiguity. According to one reading, “condition of possibility” merely means “necessary condition”. However, it is demonstrated that a deeper interpretation of the term “possibility” proves to be more fruitful. This reading allows us to reconstruct an important background assumption of Kant: Every condition of the possibility of experience holds necessarily, provided that experience is possible. Or more generally: All conditions of the possibility hold necessarily as long (...) as the conditioned is actually possible. -/- This conclusion is understood through the axiomatic system S5. Therefore I argue by referencing the schematism chapter that Kant’s notion of modal terms can be formalized through S5. (shrink)

This essay advances the thesis that Derrida’s ethics consists in the practice of philosophical responsibility. I contend that philosophical responsibility is the historical and ethical task of establishing a critical relation to one’s tradition which deliberately avoids passively and naively taking it for granted by questioning its origin and revealing its historicity. Further, I show that Derrida learns the task of philosophical responsibility from Husserl’s own version of philosophical responsibility, which he later transforms with the help of Husserl’s own methodological (...) tools. I maintain that the difference between Husserl’s and Derrida’s respective tasks is the injunction they are responding to and, concomitantly, the sense each gives to historicity. Whereas Husserl is responding to the principle of reason so as to reawaken the historicity of universal truth and its foundation, that is, the telos of Reason, Derrida is responding for the principle of reason with the purpose of disclosing the historicity of signification – différance – whose operation reduces the telos of Reason. (shrink)

This book presents a study of the nature and conditions of historical knowledge, conducted through a study of the relevant theories of Hume, Hegel and Vico. It is usually thought that in order to establish historical facts, we have to have a theory of human nature to support our arguments. Hume, Hegel and Vico all subscribed to this view, and are therefore discussed in detail. Professor Pompa goes on to argue that there is in fact no way of discovering anything (...) about human nature except through historical investigation. It is necessary therefore to find a different way of thinking about how we discover historical facts. This is done in the last chapter where, in opposition to almost all present views, it is argued that we must have a framework of inherited knowledge before we can believe in anything which results from historical enquiry. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the role of moral principles, specifically the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, in the judgements of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on matters of performance enhancement. The article begins with two pairs of distinctions, that between moral judgements and morally-laden judgements, and that between the moral judgement of cases and the ethical environment of a society. The article is concerned with working through the implications of those distinctions in the context of the IOC's judgements on performance (...) enhancement. The article favours a particularist account of the moral judgement of cases, while preserving a place for meaningful general moral statements as contributions to the ethical environment of a society, but not as general action-guiding statements or principles that can be applied to judgements in specific cases. The article illustrates the implications of this conclusion in the context of the decision-making of the IOC on performance enhancement (the case of Alain Baxter is considered). It is argued that there is a danger of the decision-making of the IOC suffering deep confusion over the difference between general and particular statements, the nature of reasons and the logic of what it is to apply a general action-guiding statement. (shrink)

Professor Pompa's study of Vico has done a great deal to stimulate and inform the growing interest in the English-speaking world in this remarkable figure. It remains the only work devoted almost exclusively to an interpretation of the New Science and offers a comprehensive guide to the main theoretical problems to which the text gives rise. For this second edition Professor Pompa has responded to the reactions of reviewers and critics and added a new chapter which analyses Vico's conception of (...) the principles which govern the development of law. (shrink)

It has always seemed to me that the universe is a bit more diabolical than one would expect. There are just too many strange and frustrating incidents that can not be attributed to pure chance. Can there be some validity to the thousands of "Murphy's Laws" that we have heard about or been subjected to? Maybe. Murphy's Laws may not be the worst of it.

There is probably no other field of study by the human race that is as full of nonsense as the subject of Political Philosophy. I believe that it would give even Religion some strong competition!. Otherwise rational people, intelligent people, even people educated to the highest level from our most prestigious universities, blindly follow some of the most ridiculous beliefs when it comes to politics. If fact, we are so confused about how to solve the problems caused by politics and (...) governing that we waste billions of dollars and an incredible amount of effort absolutely uselessly. (shrink)

The social phenomena discussed in this series of essays all center around the problem of individuals in groups faced with the choice of doing what is best for themselves or what is best for the group. Instances of the phenomena are called by many different names: "Volunteer's Dilemma", "Prisoner's Dilemma", "Collective Choice", "Rational Choice", "Social Choice", and "Voter's Paradox" to list just a few. Unfortunately, the academic programs that cover these various manifestations of the "individual vs. group" dilemma do not (...) fall under one discipline. You will not find the "Social Dilemma" department at any.. (shrink)

Whenever you have a situation in which a person or group is in power over a community, some in the community will seek to obtain special favors at the expense of all others in the community. We are all familiar with this situation from our school days where some students would seek special favors -- like a high grade -- at the expense of the other students. Such behavior in the political/economic world is called..

Some people voluntarily provide public goods while others take a free ride. Are the providers acting rationally? Should they instead follow the example of the free-rider? What are the rational and moral justifications for voluntary provision? This dissertation examines five ways to justify voluntary provision: rational prudence, social norms, group agency, fairness, and altruism. It suggests that altruism provides the best possible defense. Considerations of fairness may also provide a justification in some circumstances, but generally this argument is vulnerable to (...) the objection that free-riding is often a legitimate way of protecting oneself from exploitation by other free-riders. In places, the dissertation relies on simple game theoretic models and intuitive economic equilibrium notions to analyze public good situations. The dissertation closes with a discussion of the government's role in providing public goods. An argument is made that, for certain kinds of goods (those over which preferences are public, but whose benefits are private), the standard public goods argument is not appropriate to homogeneous populations. If this is correct, other justifications for governmental provision must be summoned for goods of this form. (shrink)

Suppose you tried to play a game in which the rules were arbitrary: each individual could set their own and could change them anytime. I doubt that you would want to play this game for very long. Most of us would rather play games that have a fixed set of rules that do not change during play. Logic is fundamentally a set of rules that we agree to use in our discussions. It is more than that, but that aspect of (...) it will be of great help in our discussions and our thinking. (shrink)

This paper begins with a discussion of the scientia sexualis/ars erotica distinction, which Foucault first advances in History of Sexuality Vol. 1, and which has been employed by many scholars to do a variety of analytical work. Though Foucault has expressed his doubts regarding his conceptualization of the differences between Western and Eastern discourses of desire, he never entirely disowns the distinction. In fact, Foucault remains convinced that China must have an ars erotica. I will explore Foucault’s sources of authority. (...) To this end, I introduce the work of famous Dutch sinologist Robert Hans van Gulik, who published the tremendously influential Sexual Life in Ancient China in 1961, and also explore Joseph Needham’s view on Chinese sex. I argue that, Foucault, in his fierce polemic against the “Repressive Hypothesis”, himself imagined a utopian Other where pleasure and desire were organised differently. I end on a discuss on Orientalism and the project of “Sinography” of comparative literature scholars Haun Saussy, Eric Hayot and others. (shrink)

Every word signifies multiple senses. Many studies using comprehension-based measures suggest that polysemes’ senses share lexical representations, whereas homophones’ meanings correspond to distinct lexical representations. Less is known about the lexical representations of polysemes compared to homophones in language production. In this study, speakers named pictures after reading sentence fragments that primed polysemes and homophones either as direct competitors to pictures, or as indirect-competitors to pictures. Polysemes elicited equal numbers of intrusions to picture names compared to in control conditions whether (...) primed as direct competitors or as indirect-competitors. This contrasted with the finding that homophones elicited more intrusions to picture names compared to in control conditions when primed as direct competitors than when primed as indirect-competitors. These results suggest that polysemes, unlike homophones, are stored and retrieved as unified lexical representations. (shrink)

We consider a language containing partial predicates for subjective knowability and truth. For this language, inductive hierarchy rules are proposed which build up the extension and anti-extension of these partial predicates in stages. The logical interaction between the extension of the truth predicate and the anti-extension of the knowability predicate is investigated.

This book introduces Robert Corrington’s “ecstatic naturalism,” a new perspective in understanding “sacred” nature and naturalism, and explores what can be done with this philosophical thought. This is an excellent resource for scholars of Continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, and American pragmatism.

This book introduces Robert Corrington’s “ecstatic naturalism,” a new perspective in understanding “sacred” nature and naturalism, and explores what can be done with this philosophical thought. This is an excellent resource for scholars of Continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, and American pragmatism.

This is an interview with the philosopher Iain Hamilton Grant, author of Idealism: The history of a philosophy and Philosophies of Nature After Schelling.

Nature’s Sublime: An Essay in Aesthetic Naturalism returns to Corrington’s roots in aesthetics as informed by two major influences: German romanticism and idealism, and “psychosemiotics”. The sublime, as it relates to both religion and aesthetics, is the book’s key motif. Those interested in American philosophy and theology, Continental philosophy of religion, German idealism, and romanticist aesthetics will appreciate this book because it takes on a very unique approach to thinking about religion’s relationship to art. Corrington’s introduction outlines four basic dimensions (...) of reality that are at stake while approaching religion through.. (shrink)