This paper argues against relativism, focusing on relativism based on the semantics of predicates of personal taste. It presents and defends a contextualist semantics for these predicates, derived from current work on gradable adjectives. It then considers metasemantic questions about the kinds of contextual parameters this semantics requires. It argues they are not metasemantically different from those in other gradable adjectives, and that contextual parameters of this sort are widespread in natural language. Furthermore, this paper shows that if such parameters (...) are rejected, it leads to an unacceptably rampant form of relativism, that relativizes truth to an open-ended list of parameters. (shrink)

The distinction between the essential and the accidental characteristics of a thing should be understood not in modal terms (the received view) nor in definitional terms (Fine’s recent proposal) but as follows: an essential characteristic of a thing is one that is not explained by any other of that thing’s characteristics, and an accidental characteristic of a thing is one that is so explained. Various versions of this proposal can be formulated.

This paper presents an approach to truth and the Liar paradox which combines elements of context dependence and hierarchy. This approach is developed formally, using the techniques of model theory in admissible sets. Special attention is paid to showing how starting with some ideas about context drawn from linguistics and philosophy of language, we can see the Liar sentence to be context dependent. Once this context dependence is properly understood, it is argued, a hierarchical structure emerges which is neither ad (...) hoc nor unnatural. (shrink)

This paper considers the evolution of the problem of scientific rationality from Kant through Carnap to Kuhn. I argue for a relativized and historicized version of the original Kantian conception of scientific a priori principles and examine the way in which these principles change and develop across revolutionary paradigm shifts. The distinctively philosophical enterprise of reflecting upon and contextualizing such principles is then seen to play a key role in making possible rational intersubjective communication between otherwise incommensurable paradigms.

Sometimes a theory is interpreted realistically--i.e., as literally true--whereas sometimes a theory is interpreted instrumentalistically--i.e., as merely a convenient device for summarizing, systematizing, deducing, etc., a given body of observable facts. This paper is part of a program aimed at determining the basis on which scientists decide on which of these interpretations to accept a theory. I proceed by examining one case: the nineteenth-century debates about the existence of atoms. I argue that there was a gradual transition from an instrumentalist (...) to a realistic acceptance of the atomic theory, because of gradual increases in its predictive power, the "testedness" of its hypotheses, the "determinateness" of its quantities, and because of resolutions of doubts about the acceptability of its basic explanatory concepts. (shrink)

I argue that a policy of presumed consent for cadaveric organ procurement, which assumes that people do want to donate their organs for transplantation after their death, would be a moral improvement over the current American system, which assumes that people do not want to donate their organs. I address what I take to be the most important objection to presumed consent. The objection is that if we implement presumed consent we will end up removing organs from the bodies of (...) people who did not want their organs removed, and that this situation is morally unacceptable because it violates the principle of respect for autonomy that underlies our concept of informed consent. I argue that while removing organs from the bodies of people who did not want them removed is unfortunate, it is morally no worse that not removing organs from the bodies of people who did want them removed, and that a policy of presumed consent will produce fewer of these unfortunate results than the current system. (shrink)

The logical positivists adopted Poincare's doctrine of the conventionality of geometry and made it a key part of their philosophical interpretation of relativity theory. I argue, however, that the positivists deeply misunderstood Poincare's doctrine. For Poincare's own conception was based on the group-theoretical picture of geometry expressed in the Helmholtz-Lie solution of the space problem, and also on a hierarchical picture of the sciences according to which geometry must be presupposed be any properly physical theory. But both of this pictures (...) are entirely incompatible with the radically new conception of space and geometry articulated in the general theory of relativity. The logical positivists's attempt to combine Poincare's conventionalism with Einstein's new theory was therefore, in the end, simply incoherent. Underlying this problem, moreover, was a fundamental philosophical difference between Poincare's and the positivists concerning the status of synthetic a priori truths. (shrink)

(2005). Ernst Cassirer and Contemporary Philosophy of Science. Angelaki: Vol. 10, continental philosophy and the sciences the german traditionissue editor: damian veal, pp. 119-128.

A common objection to hierarchical approaches to truth is that they fragment the concept of truth. This paper defends hierarchical approaches in general against the objection of fragmentation. It argues that the fragmentation required is familiar and unprob-lematic, via a comparison with mathematical proof. Furthermore, it offers an explanation of the source and nature of the fragmentation of truth. Fragmentation arises because the concept exhibits a kind of failure of closure under reflection. This paper offers a more precise characterization of (...) the reflection involved, first in the setting of formal theories of truth, and then in a more general setting. (shrink)

What is liberty, and can it be measured? In this paper I argue that the only way to have a liberty metric is to adopt an account of liberty with specific and controversial features. In particular, I argue that we can make sense of the idea of a quantity of liberty only if we are willing to count certain purely agential constraints, such as ignorance and physical incompetence, as obstacles to liberty in general. This spells trouble for traditional ‘negative’ accounts, (...) against which I argue directly. My aim is to establish the following somewhat surprising claim: that if a political theory is to contain a principle regarding the protection, maximisation, or equalisation of some liberty, it must concern itself--on pain of conceptual incoherence--with the positive preconditions (in addition to the negative preconditions) of that liberty’s effective exercise. (shrink)

Peter singer and tom regan claim that the only characteristic humans possess universally and which is relevant to the question of assigning moral rights is the capacity to enjoy and suffer. Since animals also have this capacity, There is no justification for denying that they also have rights. I try to show, By a critical examination of their views, That it makes no sense to ascribe rights to animals because rights exist only within the context of our moral community, And (...) animals lack certain crucial capacities required for membership therein. Animals' capacity to enjoy and suffer, I conclude, Provides a ground for humans' obligation to treat them humanely; but this is an obligation without a correlated right. (shrink)

It is commonly presumed that the earliest recoverable writing of the New Zealand born Philosopher Arthur N. Prior is that published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy and Psychology in 1937. Yet Prior was an extremely active writer as both an undergraduate and as a recent graduate, in a variety of publications. This paper recovers the unknown early Prior and discusses the importance of neo–orthodox Christian theology upon the life and thought of the early Arthur Prior. During the 1930s Prior (...) was primarily a theologian–philosopher and in these early writings there can be discerned important influences upon his thinking. This paper traces Prior’s writings from an early unpublished manuscript through his theological writings and the development of his neo–orthodox thinking to a point where preparatory work for his influential 1942 article ‘Can Religion be Discussed?’ occurs. It ends where Prior bibliographies begin, with a theologian–philosopher remaking himself as a philosopher theologian. Yet to understand the later Prior we need to understand his early life, thought and writing. This paper is an attempt to recover Prior’s early life and note his influences and talent in areas apart from tense logic. (shrink)

In his recent "Thomas vs. Thomas: A New Approach to Nagel's Bat Argument", Yujin Nagasawa interprets Thomas Nagel as making a certain argument against physicalism and objects that this argument transgresses a principle, laid down by Thomas Aquinas, according to which inability to perform a pseudo-task does not count against an omnipotence claim. Taking Nagasawa's interpretation of Nagel for granted, I distinguish different kinds of omnipotence claims and different kinds of pseudo-tasks, and on that basis show that Nagasawa's criticism of (...) Nagel is unsuccessful. I also show how his reflections do nonetheless point to a limitation of the approach he means to criticize. (shrink)

Leibniz's philosophy of time, often seen as a precursor to current forms of relationalism and causal theories of time, has rightly earned the admiration of his more recent counterparts in the philosophy of science. In this article, I examine Leibniz's philosophy of time from a new perspective: the role that tense and non-tensed temporal properties/relations play in it. Specifically, I argue that Leibniz's philosophy of time is best (and non-anachronistically) construed as a non-tensed theory of time, one that dispenses with (...) tensed temporal properties such as past, present, and future. In arguing for this thesis, I focus on the three facets of Leibniz's philosophy most relevant for evaluating his commitment to a B-theory of time: (1) the nature of change, (2) the reality of the future, and (3) the truth-conditions for tensed temporal statements. Despite prima facie evidence to the contrary, I show that a close examination of Leibniz's views on these topics provides compelling evidence for interpreting his philosophy of time as a B-theory of time. (shrink)

Herder already very early in his career, in the 1760s, established two vitally important and epoch-making principles in the philosophy of language: that thought is essentially dependent on and bounded by language; and that meanings or concepts should be identified - not with such items as the referents involved, Platonic forms, or empiricist 'ideas' - but with word-usages. What did Herder do for an encore? His Treatise on the Origin of Language from 1772 might seem the natural place to look (...) for an answer to this question (since it is his best known work in the philosophy of language by far), but it is really the wrong place to look, because it temporarily regresses to a more conventional and less philosophically interesting position. However, Herder did succeed in making impressive progress in a broader array of works, namely by striving to identify prima facie problem cases confronting his two principles and to reconcile them with the latter. The main ones which he identified were God, animals, and non-linguistic art. In each of these cases, having initially proposed a reconciliation which did not work, he went on to develop a much more plausible one, indeed one which (at least in the two cases that really require one: animals and non-linguistic art) seems broadly correct. (shrink)

Liberal theories of justice have often been unable to include the recognition of minority rights or of multiculturalism because of their emphasis on individuals. In contrast, recent theories of cultural recognition and minority rights have underestimated the tensions between group and individual rights. It is precisely the incorporation of past wrongs and their impact on present politics that can advance the liberal theory of justice for cultural minorities and their members.

Seit dem 18. Jahrhundert gibt es zahlreiche theoretische Versuche, Asthetik und Kunst als Wesensmerkmale des Menschen auszuweisen. Aber erst mit der Entwicklung der modernen philosophischen Anthropologie im 20. Jahrhundert gelang es, philosophische, soziologische und naturwissenschaftliche Aspekte zu einem uberzeugenden Gesamtkonzept zu verknupfen. Dabei sind erstaunlicherweise die einschlagigen Reflexionen der beiden profiliertesten Vertreter der philosophischen Anthropologie, Arnold Gehlens und Helmuth Plessners, bisher kaum zur Kenntnis genommen worden, obwohl sie sich zeitlebens mit asthetischen und kunstgeschichtlichen Fragen beschaftigt haben. Michael Hog untersucht (...) die beiden Gesamtwerke nach Moglichkeiten und Grenzen einer anthropologischen Asthetik und asthetischen Anthropologie sowie ihren Implikationen fur die moderne Kunst bis zur Gegenwart. (shrink)

According to Margaret Gilbert’s collective epistemology, we should take attributions of beliefs to groups seriously, rather than metaphorically or as reducible to individual belief. I argue that, similarly, attributions of belief to markets ought to be taken seriously and not merely as reports of the average beliefs of market participants. While many of Gilbert’s purported examples of group belief are better thought of as instances of acceptance, some collectives, such as courts and markets, genuinely believe. Such collectives enact truth-aimed processes (...) that are beyond the control of any single individual. These processes produce beliefs that are distinct from any individual belief and do not merely report the “average” or “majority” view of the group. In the case of markets, beliefs are indicated by prices, though it is often difficult to infer beliefs from prices and those inferences are almost always uncertain. Reliabilism is the best available standard of justification for market beliefs. In some cases market beliefs are reliable and prove to be true. Thus, in some cases markets can know. (shrink)

Nach einem Überblick über die Unterscheidung von Pausen, Schweigen und Stille und einer knappen Diskussion älterer Auffassungen zum Schweigen in therapeutischen Sitzungen wird ein theoretischer Bezugsrahmen entworfen. Danach sind Pausen nicht Gegensatz, sondern Element der Konversation und sie können nicht individuell zugerechnet werden, weil der andere sie gewährt. Das unterscheidet sie vom Schweigen. Es werden Transkriptbeispiele therapeutischer Situationen analysiert, in denen Pausen vorkommen. Sie lassen sich als Folgen von Ereignissen vor der Pause analysieren. Der theoretische Hintergrund ist die Konversationsanalyse, die (...) Anschluss an neurowissenschaftliche Überlegungen zu Sprechpausen gewinnt. Gesprächsstrukturelle Momente und motivationale Zusammenhänge lassen sich auf der Annahme von Harvey Sacks, des Begründers der Konversationsanalyse, zusammenführen: Jede Konversation wird von einer stillen Dimension, die er »my-mind-is-with-you« nannte, begleitet. (shrink)

Radical ecology typically brings to mind media images of ecological activists standing before loggers' saws, staging anti-nuclear marches, and confronting polluters on the high seas. Yet for more than twenty years, the activities of organizations such as the Greens and Earth First! have been influenced by a diverse, less-publicized group of radical ecological philosophers. It is their work—the philosophical underpinnings of the radical ecological movement—that is the subject of _Contesting Earth's Future_. The book offers a much-needed, balanced appraisal of radical (...) ecology's principles, goals, and limitations. Michael Zimmerman critically examines the movement's three major branches—deep ecology, social ecology, and ecofeminism. He also situates radical ecology within the complex cultural and political terrain of the late twentieth century, showing its relation to Martin Heidegger's anti-technological thought, 1960s counterculturalism, and contemporary theories of poststructuralism and postmodernity. An early and influential ecological thinker, Zimmerman is uniquely qualified to provide a broad overview of radical environmentalism and delineate its various schools of thought. He clearly describes their defining arguments and internecine disputes, among them the charge that deep ecology is an anti-modern, proto-fascist ideology. Reflecting both the movement's promise and its dangers, this book is essential reading for all those concerned with the worldwide ecological crisis. (shrink)

This book addresses such key ethical issues as euthanasia, the environment, biotechnology, abortion, the family, sexual ethics, and the distribution of health care resources. Michael Banner argues that the task of Christian ethics is to understand the world and humankind in the light of the credal affirmations of the Christian faith, and to explicate this understanding in its significance for human action through a critical engagement with the concerns, claims and problems of other ethics. He illustrates both the distinctiveness (...) of Christian convictions in relation to the above issues and also the critical dialogue with practices based on other convictions which this sense of distinctiveness motivates but does not prevent. The book's importance lies in its attempt to show the crucial difference which Christian belief makes to an understanding of these issues, whilst at the same time demonstrating some of the weaknesses and confusions of certain popular approaches to them. (shrink)

Verbs of mental states or activity constitute a subject of considerable interest to both Cognitive Linguistics and Linguistic Typology. They promise to open a window on the invisible workings of the mind, while at the same time displaying a wide variety of historical sources across languages. In this book Michael Fortescue presents an innovative approach to the semantics and diachronic source of cognitive verbs across a representative array of the world's languages. The relationship among the cognitive verbs of individual (...) languages is essentially one of metonymy, and the book investigates in detail the specific metonymic relationships involved, as revealed largely by the polysemous spread of word meanings. The data is projected against a circular 'map' of interrelated cognitive categories. (shrink)

So there will be no mistake, I don’t deny, why would I wish to, that a thematic of racial difference is crucial to the overall plot of Almayer’s Folly. What I claim is that that thematic falls short of significantly determining or even, to use Brown’s word, appreciably “complicating” the problematic of erasure that surfaces in the closing chapters. It’s as though the rest of the novel is there chiefly to stage those chapters and their dramatization of erasure; something similar (...) takes place in Powell’s narrative of spying into Captain Anthony’s cabin toward the end of Chance and even, to a lesser degree, in the climactic encounter between Winnie Verloc and her husband in chapter 11 of The Secret Agent. It’s worth noting, too, that the opening paragraphs of A Personal Record, Conrad’s autobiographical account of the beginnings and origins of his “writing life,” describe the circumstances under which “the tenth chapter of ‘Almayer’s Folly’ was begun.”8 This in itself suggests that Conrad has a special stake in the last three chapters of his first novel, and one of my aims in “Almayer’s Face” was to discover what that stake may have been.9 8. Joseph Conrad, A Personal Record , pp. 72: my emphasis.9. Again, so there will be no mistake, I would distinguish Almayer’s Folly sharply in this respect from, for example, The Nigger of the “Narcissus,” in which effects of erasure are disseminated throughout the text and in which the title character’s blackness is crucial to their production. Michael Fried, J. R. Herbert Boone Professor of Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University, is currently at work on books on Manet and on literary “impressionism.” His most recent book is Courbet’s Realism. (shrink)

In The Intentional Spectrum and Intersubjectivity Michael D. Barber is the first to bring phenomenology to bear not just on the perspectives of McDowell or Brandom alone, but on their intersection.

Das szenische Verstehen kann mit philosophischen Auffassungen verbunden werden, die dem Menschen eine »szenische Existenzform« zusprechen. Das schließt die Interaktion, v.a. aber die »Konversation« ein, die nach Freuds Vorschlag Ausgangslage aller Theoriebildung ist. Dazu lassen sich die Mittel der Konversationsanalyse nutzen. Die Konversationsanalyse wird mit ihren beiden »Zweigen«, einem sozialwissenschaftlichen und einem linguis­tischen, vorgestellt und an transkribierten Beispielen erläutert. Die Verbindung von szenischem Verstehen und Konversationsanalyse kann das Unbewusste, wie gezeigt wird, um die Dimension der aktuellen Gesprächsdynamik erweitern und damit (...) eine Empirie wissenschaftlich bearbeiten, die anderen, derzeit dominanten empirischen Methoden entgeht. (shrink)

In recent years, Hubert Dreyfus has put forward a critique of the social and cultural effects of the Internet on modern societies based on the value of what he calls “the background” of largely tacit and unarticulated social norms. While Dreyfus is right to turn to the “background” in order to understand the effects of the Internet on society and culture, his unequivocally negative conclusions are unwarranted. I argue that a modified account of the background – one more attuned to (...) what the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls “social fields” – can lead to sounder and more illuminating conclusions. (shrink)

The Göttingen philosopher Michael Hissmann (1752-1784) has been the subject of considerable attention from historians of philosophy due to his materialistic positions. He conducted an extensive correspondence with friends and colleagues, including Christian Garve, Wilhelm Dohm, Franz von Irwing, and Jakob Mauvillon. Hissmann's recently discovered legacy now makes possible an extensive documentation of this correspondence.

Michael Bradie does not share Blackmore's enthusiasm for the ‘new science of memetics’.

Michael Walzer, der im westlichen Diskurs wohl als der bekannteste Theoretiker in Sachen »gerechter Krieg« angesehen werden kann, plädiert in aller Entschiedenheit für eine Ethik der humanitären Intervention. Obwohl es ohne Zweifel besser ist, wenn ein tyrannisches Regime durch das eigene Volk vertrieben wird, so gibt es nach Walzer dennoch Fälle extremer Gewalt, wie z.B. die Killing Fields der Roten Khmer, die Anarchie in Sierra Leone oder die »ethnischen Säuberungen« im Kosovo, wo militärische Interventionen zur Rettung der Opfer auch (...) ohne Beschluss des UN-Sicherheitsrates gerechtfertigt werden können. Zwar bestehe keine moralische Pflicht zur Intervention, dennoch zögert Walzer, humanitäre Interventionen bloß den »unvollkommenen Pflichten« zuzuordnen. Nach Walzer sollte im Fall von massenhaften Tötungen jeder handeln, der dazu in der Lage ist, d. h. Staaten, nicht Einzelne. Dass Staaten immer auch Interessen verfolgen, ist nach Walzer kein zwingendes Argument gegen humanitäre Interventionen. Denn absolute Reinheit der moralischen Motive sei weder im privaten noch im politischen Handlungsfeld vollkommen verwirklichbar. Wichtige Klärungen sind allerdings in der Frage der Auswahl der Mittel vorzunehmen, in denen die Risken der intervenierenden Soldaten und der Zivilbevölkerung abzuwägen sind. (shrink)

Michael Young, an anthropologist and Malinowski's authorized biographer, has selected the photographs based on one of Malinowski's unpublished studies of the region, and the plan of that abandoned project has helped structure this book.

Bd. 1, Pt. 1. Philosophie in Österreich (1400-1650); Vom Konstanzer Konzil zum Auftreten Luthers; Vom Beginn der Reformation bis zum Westfälischen Frieden / Michael Benedikt, Reinhold Knoll, Josef Rupitz (Hg.) -- Bd. 1, Pt. 2. Die Philosophie in Österreich zwischen Reformation und Aufklärung (1650-1750); Die Stärke des Barock / Michael Benedikt, Reinhold Knoll, Josef Rupitz (Hg.) -- [2. Bd.]. Österreichische Philosophie zur Zeit der Revolution und Restauration, 1750-1820 / Michael Benedikt (Hg.). -- 3. Bd. Bildung und Einbildung; (...) Vom verfehlten Bürgerlichen zum Liberalismus; Philosophie in Österreich (1820-1880) / Michael Benedikt, Reinhold Knoll (Hg.) -- Bd. 4. Anspruch un Echo / Michael Benedikt, Endre Kiss, Reinhold Knoll (Hg.) -- Bd. 5. Im Schatten der Totalitarianismus : vom philosophischen Empiricismus zur kritischen Anthropologie : Philosophie in Österreich, 1920-1951 / Michael Benedikt, Reinhold Knoll, Cornelius Zehetner (Hg.) -- Bd. 6. Auf der Suche nach authentischem Philosophieren : Philosophie in Österreich, 1951-2000 / Michael Benedikt ... [et al.] (Hg.). (shrink)

Relates Eastern concepts to Western religion, art, and modern science, and suggests their relevance to the reader.