Donald Davidson contributed to the discussion of logical form in two ways. On the one hand, he made several influential suggestions on how to give the logical forms of certain constructions of natural language. His account of adverbial modification and so called action-sentences is nowadays, in some form or other, widely employed in linguistics (Harman (forthcoming) calls it "the standard view"). Davidson's approaches to indirect discourse and quotation, while not as influential, also still attract attention today. On the other hand, (...) Davidson provided a general account of what logical form is. This paper is concerned with this general account. Its foremost aim is to give a faithful and detailed picture of what, according to Davidson, it means to give the logical form of a sentence. The structure of the paper is as follows. (1) I will first informally introduce a notion of logical form as the form that matters in certain kinds of entailments, and indicate why philosophers have taken an interest in such a notion. (2) The second section develops constraints that we should arguably abide by in giving an account of logical form. (3) I then turn to Davidson’s view of what is involved in giving such an account. To this end, I will try to reconstruct Davidson’s view of the connection between an assignment of logical forms, a truth theory and a meaning theory. (4) Finally, I will briefly discuss possible problems of Davidson’s account as developed in this paper. (shrink)

Donald Davidson contributed to the discussion of logical form in two ways: by making specific suggestions on how to give the logical forms of certain natural language constructions, and by providing a general account of what logical form is. This chapter's foremost aim is to give a detailed picture of this general account. I introduce a notion of logical form as the form that matters in certain kinds of entailments, indicate why philosophers have taken an interest in such a notion, (...) and develop constraints that we should arguably abide by in giving an account of logical form. I then turn to Davidson's view of what is involved in giving such an account. To this aim, I reconstruct Davidson's view of the connection between an assignment of logical forms, a truth theory and a meaning theory. The chapter closes with a brief discussion of possible problems. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the semantics of bare plural I-generics such as ‘Tigers are striped’, ‘Chickens lay eggs’, and ‘Kangaroos live in Australia’. In a series of recent papers, Bernhard Nickel has developed a comprehensive view of a certain class of bare plural I-generics, which he calls characterizing sentences :629–648, 2009. doi:10.1007/s10988-008-9049-7; Linguist Philos 33:479–512, 2010a. doi:10.1007/s10988-011-9087-4; Philos Impr 10:1–25, 2010b). Nickel’s ambitious proposal includes a detailed account of their truth-conditions, an account of certain pragmatic phenomena that they give (...) rise to, a metaphysical picture of their truth-makers in terms of mechanisms, and an epistemological story connecting characterizing sentences to such concepts as induction and explanation. This paper offers an extended critique of the central truth-conditional component of Nickel’s proposal. In a nutshell, his account has it that ‘Tigers are striped’ is true iff, for tigers, there is a way of being normal with respect to fur-pattern such that all tigers that are normal that way are striped. I begin by explaining what characterizing sentences are and distinguish several readings that are available for sentences with bare plurals in subject position. I then introduce Nickel’s account and discuss some of its predictions which, in my view, seem highly problematic. Moreover, I argue that Nickel’s principle of Homogeneity does not go together well with his proposed truth-conditions, and that his truth-conditional account violates a plausible principle about the logic of generics, a principle I call generic non-contradiction. (shrink)

Philosophers of mathematics commonly distinguish between explanatory and non-explanatory proofs. An important subclass of mathematical proofs are proofs by induction. Are they explanatory? This paper addresses the question, based on general principles about explanation. First, a recent argument for a negative answer is discussed and rebutted. Second, a case is made for a qualified positive take on the issue.

The fundamental problem proponents of truth conditional semantics must face is to specify what role a truth theory is supposed to play within a meaning theory. The most detailed proposal for tackling this problem is the account developed by Ernest Lepore and Kirk Ludwig. However, as I will show in this paper, theories along the lines of Lepore and Ludwig do not suffice to put someone into the position to understand the objectlanguage. The fundamental problem of truth conditional semantics thus (...) remains unsolved. (shrink)

Donald Davidson suggested that, in attempting to give meaning theories, we should proceed via giving truth theories. For the programme of truth-theoretic semantics to be successful, two tasks need to be accomplished. First, it has to be shown that natural languages are actually amendable to truth theoretic treatment. The second task is to show how we can bridge the gap between a truth theory and a genuine meaning theory. This second task is necessitated by the simple fact that truth theories (...) by themselves are too weak to satisfy the central desideratum for a meaning theory. In a recent paper, Greg Ray suggests that the goal of giving meaning theories can easily be achieved, not by supplementing the truth-theoretic apparatus, but by doing away with it altogether. In particular, he proposes that what he calls means-that theories meet all the desiderata on meaning theories, and that ‘anyone with basically Davidsonian commitments must accept the means-that approach as viable and that it has certain evident virtues’. This paper argues that theories along Ray's lines do not satisfy the central desideratum for meaning theories. Ray's belief to the contrary rests on a common misunderstanding of what this desideratum amounts to. As I indicate in the final section of the paper, there perhaps is a way of substantially amending Ray's approach in order to meet the central desideratum. However, in an ironic twist, this will require giving a full-fledged truth theory for the metalanguage, including its intensional constructions like ‘means that’ – precisely the project Ray attempted to avoid. (shrink)

This paper argues, first, that the information problem poses a foundational challenge to mainstream semantics. It proposes, second, to address this problem by drawing on notions from Kit Fine’s essentialist framework. More specifically, it claims that the information problem can be avoided by strengthening standard truth theories, employing an operator expressing the notion of a relative constitutive semantic requirement. As a result, the paper proposes to construe semantic theories as theories of semantic requirements, and semantic knowledge as knowledge of such (...) requirements. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has claimed that for every logical truth 5 of a language L, a theory of meaning for L will entail that S is a logical truth of L. Jim Edwards has argued (2002) that this claim is false if we take 'entails' to mean 'has as a logical consequence. In this paper, I first show that, pace Edwards, Davidson's claim is correct even under this strong reading. I then discuss the argument given by Edwards and offer a diagnosis (...) of where he went wrong. (shrink)

Selected papers from the sections of the eighth international conference organized by the Society for Analytic Philosophy (GAP), Constance, Germany, September 17-20, 2012. The overall theme of the conference was "What may we believe? What ought we to do?", but the papers published here address a wide variety of questions from many fields of philosophy.

In developing a theory of consciousness, one of the main problems has to do with determining what distinguishes conscious states from non-conscious ones—the delimitation problem. This paper explores the possibility of solving this problem in terms of self-awareness. That self-awareness is essential to understanding the nature of our conscious experience is perhaps the most widely discussed hypothesis in the study of consciousness throughout the history of philosophy. Its plausibility hinges on how the notion of self-awareness is unpacked. The idea that (...) consciousness involves self-awareness has been understood in two different ways: either as awareness of oneself—the subject of experience—or as awareness of the conscious episode itself. In this paper I argue (i) that every experience concerns the subject in a very specific way, involving what I will call ‘perspectival de se representation’, and (ii) that there is no need to appeal to the experience itself in order to characterize the awareness within that experience. The view I articulate explains the subjective nature of experience without over-intellectualizing it, accommodates the phenomenology of experience, and dispels any doubt about the need to find the self in introspection. (shrink)

It is often claimed that a minimal form of self-awareness is constitutive of our conscious experience. Some have considered that such a claim is plausible for our ordinary experiences but false when considered unrestrictedly on the basis of the empirical evidence from altered states. In this paper I want to reject such a reasoning. This requires, first, a proper understanding of a minimal form of self-awareness – one that makes it plausible that minimal self-awareness is part of our ordinary experiences. (...) I will argue that it should be understood as Perspectival First-Person Awareness : a non-conceptual identification-free self-attribution that defines the first-person perspective for our conscious experience. I will offer a detailed characterization of PFP-Awareness in semantic and epistemological terms. With this tool in hand, I will review the empirical literature on altered states. I will focus on psychedelics, meditation and dreams, as they have been claimed to present the clearest cases in favor of a radical disruption of self-awareness. I will show that the rejection of the idea that minimal self-awareness is constitutive of our experience on the basis of this evidence is unfounded, for two main reasons. First, although there are good grounds to think that some forms of self-awareness that typically accompany our ordinary experiences are compromised, they do not support the claim that PFP-Awareness is absent. Secondly, the reports that could make us think of a radical disruption of self-awareness are most probably due to a confirmation bias – and hence we should mistrust them – derived from the expectations and metaphysical views of their subjects. (shrink)

We examine conceptual and methodological problems that arise in the course of the scientific study of possible influences of religious belief on the experience of physical pain. We start by attempting to identify a notion of religious belief that might enter into interesting psychological generalizations involving both religious belief and pain. We argue that it may be useful to think of religious belief as a complex dispositional property that relates believers to a sufficiently thick belief system that encompasses both cognitive (...) and non-cognitive elements. Such a conception of religious belief is more likely to correlate with psychological properties of believers that are both sufficiently shared and sufficiently unique to distinguish their psychology from believers in another religion or from non-believers. If the dispositional psychological property that constitutes religious belief does influence pain, then our analysis suggests that it doesn’t do so directly but rather through one of its occurrent manifestations. We offer a taxonomy of the different ways in which occurrent states of belief or experience may interact with physical pain, and we try to identify those that are more interesting or promising. We then proceed to employ the conceptual framework we developed to some of the existing evidence about the neural and psychological correlates of religious belief and experience, and about the cognitive modulation of physical pain. Finally we turn to analyse two experiments that directly investigated the relation between religious belief and pain. We draw attention to the limitations of existing evidence and end by suggesting directions for future conceptual and empirical inquiry. (shrink)

Despite the emergence of computer games as a dominant cultural industry, we know little or nothing about the ethics of computer games. Considerations of the morality of computer games seldom go beyond intermittent portrayals of them in the mass media as training devices for teenage serial killers. In this first scholarly exploration of the subject, Miguel Sicart addresses broader issues about the ethics of games, the ethics of playing the games, and the ethical responsibilities of game designers. He argues (...) that computer games are ethical objects, that computer game players are ethical agents, and that the ethics of computer games should be seen as a complex network of responsibilities and moral duties. Players should not be considered passive amoral creatures; they reflect, relate, and create with ethical minds. The games they play are ethical systems, with rules that create gameworlds with values at play. Drawing on concepts from philosophy and game studies, Sicart proposes a framework for analyzing the ethics of computer games as both designed objects and player experiences. After presenting his core theoretical arguments and offering a general theory for understanding computer game ethics, Sicart offers case studies examining single-player games, multiplayer games, and online gameworlds from an ethical perspective. He explores issues raised by unethical content in computer games and its possible effect on players and offers a synthesis of design theory and ethics that could be used as both analytical tool and inspiration in the creation of ethical gameplay. (shrink)

Written by pioneers in the field, this practical book presents an authoritative yet accessible overview of the methods and applications of causal inference. The text provides a thorough introduction to the basics of the theory for non-time-varying treatments and the generalization to complex longitudinal data.

Neglected diseases are severe conditions that mainly affect the world's poorest people. Those suffering from neglected diseases are mostly suffering from tropical infections that have failed to receive priority in pharmaceutical research and development programs, as well as in public health policies aimed at improving availability and access to preventive, diagnostic and curative medicine. The World Health Organization has issued a number of documents directing attention to the plight affecting one third of the world's population, assisted by active support from (...) private organizations, notably the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation, but the overall situation remains dismal. In the wake of major socioeconomic processes including globalization, steadily growing economic disparity, healthcare inequality, the instability created by rogue states and terrorism, as well as massive migration, and epidemic outbreaks, the features of neglected diseases have been changing. Neglected populations affected by tropical diseases are suffering increasingly from non-infectious degenerative conditions and disabilities due to untreated chronic maladies. Pockets of poverty and neglect can also be detected in high-income countries, contributing to the emergence of new diseases and the reemergence of infections believed to be disappearing such as tuberculosis and the measles. Included in the issues of neglect are rare diseases, mostly of genetic origin, affecting a small number of patients that suffer from multiple life-shortening functional impairment and organ defects. Effective medicines are extremely expensive, allegedly because research and development of appropriate drugs is resources and time consuming, requiring exorbitant prices to recoup investment from a small number of consumers. Bioethics has been tardy in addressing the suffering and destitution of neglected and rare diseases. Convinced that permanently repeated denunciations blunt the sensitivity towards suffering, whereas statistics are bloodless and unable to elicit commitment, this book attempts to explore a different strategy. In an upstream approach, bioethics needs to engage in ethnographic fieldwork that confronts and shares the context in which people suffer, vividly presenting what epidemiological research has blunted into statistical data. Additionally, a downstream approach is suggested, requiring bioethics to vigorously and openly denounce unethical biomedical and pharmaceutical research, misdeeds in registration and marketing of drugs, and misalignment of policies with the unmet healthcare needs of the destitute. More than being critical observers, bioethicists ought to shed lurking conflicts of interests and seek active participation in planning research and public healthcare practices aimed at improving the lives of medically neglected populations. (shrink)

Why computer games can be ethical, how players use their ethical values in gameplay, and the implications for game design.

How computer games can be designed to create ethically relevant experiences for players. Today's blockbuster video games—and their never-ending sequels, sagas, and reboots—provide plenty of excitement in high-resolution but for the most part fail to engage a player's moral imagination. In Beyond Choices, Miguel Sicart calls for a new generation of video and computer games that are ethically relevant by design. In the 1970s, mainstream films—including The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver—filled theaters but also treated their (...) audiences as thinking beings. Why can't mainstream video games have the same moral and aesthetic impact? Sicart argues that it is time for games to claim their place in the cultural landscape as vehicles for ethical reflection. Sicart looks at games in many manifestations: toys, analog games, computer and video games, interactive fictions, commercial entertainments, and independent releases. Drawing on philosophy, design theory, literary studies, aesthetics, and interviews with game developers, Sicart provides a systematic account of how games can be designed to challenge and enrich our moral lives. After discussing such topics as definition of ethical gameplay and the structure of the game as a designed object, Sicart offers a theory of the design of ethical game play. He also analyzes the ethical aspects of game play in a number of current games, including Spec Ops: The Line, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, Fallout New Vegas, and Anna Anthropy's Dys4Ia. Games are designed to evoke specific emotions; games that engage players ethically, Sicart argues, enable us to explore and express our values through play. (shrink)

A presente obra trata, de forma inigualável, das preliminares ao estudo da teoria tridimensional do direito, examinando a Filosofia e a Ciência do Direito, as dimensões da experiência jurídica, a posição do tridimensionalismo jurídico concreto, a dialética de complementaridade, o personalismo e o historicismo axiológico, as estruturas e os modelos do Direito no processo cultural e a visão integral do mundo jurídico.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Notas à margem de um estudo de Clovis Bevilaqua; separata da Revista de Faculdade de Direito de São Paulo, ano 1947, pgs. 51 a 96.--A doutrina de Kant nos primórdios de nossa emancipação cultural. O padre Feijó.

Presents advice on how to gain personal freedom by following the wisdom of the Toltecs.

A strikingly original work, Friends of Interpretable Objects re-anchors aesthetics in the object of attention even as it redefines the practice, processes, ...

v. 1. Propedêutica filosófia. v. 2. Ontognoseologia juridica.

This chapter contains sections titled: Warming Up Seeking Early Solace Experience and Thought So Be It Against Lukewarmness Pragmatic Use of Belief.

Phenomenology in medicine’s main contribution is to present a first-person narrative of illness, in an effort to aid medicine in reaching an accurate disease diagnosis and establishing a personal relationship with patients whose lived experience changes dramatically when severe disease and disabling condition is confirmed. Once disease is diagnosed, the lived experience of illness is reconstructed into a living-with-disease narrative that medicine’s biological approach has widely neglected. Key concepts like health, sickness, illness, disease and the clinical encounter are being diversely (...) and ambiguously used, leading to distortions in socio-medical practices such as medicalization, pharmaceuticalization, emphasis on surveillance medicine. Current definitions of these concepts as employed in phenomenology of medicine are revised, concluding that more stringent semantics ought to reinforce an empirical phenomenological or postphenomenological approach. (shrink)