Denialism concerning free will and moral responsibility combines, in its minimal form, the rejection of libertarian free will and the rejection of compatibilism. I will address the more ambitiously “happy” or “optimistic” version of denialism, which also claims that we are better off without belief in free will and moral responsibility, and ought to try to radically reform our moral, social and personal lives without such beliefs. I argue that such denialism involves, for various reasons, a dangerous gamble, which it (...) would be morally irresponsible to follow. I conclude by reflecting upon the implications. (shrink)

As the premier early modern advocate of an Epicurean alternative to the prevailing neo-Scholastic framework of Aristotelianism, Pierre Gassendi promoted not only ancient but also innovative reasoning on behalf of atomism, probabilism, empiricism, psychological hedonism, social contractarianism, and a range of other stances associated with the philosophy of the Garden. Much commentary has focused on the extent to which Gassendi ‘baptizes’ Epicurean thought. Beyond this aspect of his Epicureanism are questions as to whether, and how, Gassendi is true to core (...) Epicurean thinking, and what he preserves and promotes as valuable to philosophical and natural investigations of his time. Indeed, much subsequent modern philosophy builds on or reacts to an Epicurean legacy bequeathed by Gassendi, comprising his adjustments to, constraints on, or corrections of, the canonical views. Yet, for all his amendments, he retains as a primary philosophical motivation the Epicurean goal of striving for ataraxia. In this, he signals his firm commitment to philosophy in the tradition of the canonical Epicurean views. And, as with Epicurus’ own notion, his account of the centrality of attaining tranquility directs us to a better understanding of our nature and that of the world around us; amenable, in Gassendi’s framework, to Christian thought and contemporary natural philosophical investigations. (shrink)

This essay explores the speech act of dogwhistling (sometimes referred to as ‘using coded language’). Dogwhistles may be overt or covert, and within each of these categories may be intentional or unintentional. Dogwhistles are a powerful form of political speech, allowing people to be manipulated in ways they would resist if the manipulation was carried outmore openly—often drawing on racist attitudes that are consciously rejected. If philosophers focus only on content expressed or otherwise consciously conveyed they may miss what is (...) most powerful and pernicious in the speech of political culture. This essay is a call to start paying attention to these more covert speech acts, and a first attempt at beginning to theorize them. It argues that dogwhistles present a complex and interesting case for the philosopher of language, and explores their implications for democratic politics. (shrink)

Albert and De Ruiter provide an introduction to the Conversation Analytic approach to ‘repair’: the ways in which people detect and deal with troubles in speaking, hearing and understanding in conversation. They explain the basic turn‐taking structures involved, provide examples, explain recent developments in the field and highlight some important points of contact and contrast with work in the Cognitive Sciences.

A transcript of three lectures, given at Princeton University in 1970, which deals with (inter alia) debates concerning proper names in the philosophy of language.

In this book Saul Kripke brings his powerful philosophical intelligence to bear on Wittgenstein's analysis of the notion of following a rule.

In a wide-ranging, provocative anatomy of modern society and its origins, novelist and historian John Ralston Saul explores the reason for our deepening sense of crisis and confusion. Throughout the Western world we talk endlessly of individual freedom, yet Saul shows that there has never before been such pressure for conformity. Our business leaders describe themselves as capitalists, yet most are corporate employees and financial speculators. We are obsessed with competition, yet the single largest item of international trade (...) is a subsidized market in armaments. We call our governments democracies, yet few of us participate in politics. We complain about "invasive government," yet our legal, educational, financial, social, cultural and legislative systems are breaking down. While most observers view these problems separately, Saul demonstrates that they are largely manifestations of our blind faith in the value of reason. Over the last 400 years, our "rational elites" have gradually instituted reforms in every phase of social life. But Saul shows that they have also been responsible for most of the difficulties and violence of the same period. This paradox arises from a simple truth which our elites deny: far from being a moral force, reason is no more than an administrative method. Their denial has helped to turn the modern West into a vast, incomprehensible, directionless machine, run by process-minded experts - "Voltaire's bastards"--Whose cult of scientific management is bereft of both sense and morality. Whether in politics, art, business, the military, entertainment, science, finance, academia or journalism, these experts share the same outlook and methods. The result, Saul maintains, is a civilization of immense technological power whose peoples increasingly dwell in a world of illusion. Already known to millions of readers as the author of novels which portray the overwhelming effects of this power on the modern individual by weaving together international finance, the oil and arms business, guerrilla warfare, drug traffic, and the world of art, here Saul lays aside the mask of fiction to speak in his own voice. Only by withdrawing from our addiction to "solutions," he argues, reclaiming the citizens' right to question and participate in public life, and recovering a common sense capacity for intelligent panic, can we find a way out of our permanent crisis. (shrink)

The notion of social progress is not much in favour in these sophisticated times of scepticism, cynicism, relativism and political correctness; at least in the West. Most people might admit that some indubitable advances have occurred, primarily in terms of this or that useful technological innovation. But any wider claim about ‘social progress’ is often met by overwhelming doubt and suspicion, if not outright derision. I provide a short argument for belief in progress.

Since the 1970s, researchers have focused on visual joint attention as a way to observe and operationalize joint attention. I will argue that this methodological choice has neglected other modalities and as a consequence might be missing important elements in the account of the development of JA and the evolutionary history of JA. I argue that by including other modes of interaction, such as touch, we open the possibility of finding that non-human primates and younger human infants engage in basic (...) forms of JA. Moreover, I argue that touch, as a proximal mode of perception, is the ontogenetic precursor of social communication. (shrink)

Presenting ten diverse and original moral paradoxes, this cutting edge work of philosophical ethics makes a focused, concrete case for the centrality of paradoxes within morality. Explores what these paradoxes can teach us about morality and the human condition Considers a broad range of subjects, from familiar topics to rarely posed questions Makes a concrete case for the centrality of paradox within morality Asks whether the existence of moral paradox is a good or a bad thing Presents analytic moral philosophy (...) in a provocative, engaging and entertaining way; posing new questions, proposing possible solutions, and challenging the reader to wrestle with the paradoxes themselves. (shrink)

A formal theory of truth, alternative to tarski's 'orthodox' theory, based on truth-value gaps, is presented. the theory is proposed as a fairly plausible model for natural language and as one which allows rigorous definitions to be given for various intuitive concepts, such as those of 'grounded' and 'paradoxical' sentences.

Reference and Existence, Saul Kripke's John Locke Lectures for 1973, can be read as a sequel to his classic Naming and Necessity. It confronts important issues left open in that work -- among them, the semantics of proper names and natural kind terms as they occur in fiction and in myth; negative existential statements; the ontology of fiction and myth. In treating these questions, he makes a number of methodological observations that go beyond the framework of his earlier book (...) -- including the striking claim that fiction cannot provide a test for theories of reference and naming. In addition, these lectures provide a glimpse into the transition to the pragmatics of singular reference that dominated his influential paper, " Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference " -- a paper that helped reorient linguistic and philosophical semantics. Some of the themes have been worked out in later writings by other philosophers -- many influenced by typescripts of the lectures in circulation -- but none have approached the careful, systematic treatment provided here. The virtuosity of Naming and Necessity -- the colloquial ease of the tone, the dazzling, on-the-spot formulations, the logical structure of the overall view gradually emerging over the course of the lectures -- is on display here as well. (shrink)

Max Stirner was one of the most important and seminal thinkers of the mid-nineteenth century. In the shadows of Hegel, Stirner developed possibly the most radical and devastating critique ever of the discourses of modernity, incurring the ire of Marx, prefiguring Nietzsche, and having a major (though often unacknowledged) impact on diverse streams of thought, from existentialism to anarchism and autonomism, literary and artistic avant-gardes, and postmodern theory. This edited volume investigates Stirner's impact on critical thinking and social and political (...) thought, exploring his radical and contemporary importance as a political theorist. In unmasking the religiosity lurking behind discourses of humanism and rationalism, and the domination of the individual immanent within liberal modes of politics, Stirner demolished the ontological foundations and universal grand narratives of our modernity. His thought has implications for contemporary questions of ideology, power, subjectivity, ethics and action, and opens the way for entirely new forms of politics. (shrink)

am going to discuss some issues inspired by a well-known paper ofKeith Donnellan, "Reference and Definite Descriptions,”2 but the interest—to me—of the contrast mentioned in my title goes beyond Donnellan's paper: I think it is of considerable constructive as well as critical importance to the philosophy oflanguage. These applications, however, and even everything I might want to say relative to Donnellan’s paper, cannot be discussed in full here because of problems of length. Moreover, although I have a considerable interest in (...) the substantive issues raised by Donnellan’s paper, and by related literature, my own conclusions will be methodological, not substantive. I can put the matter this way: Donnellan’s paper claims to give decisive objections both to Russell’s theory of definite descriptions (taken as a theory about English) and to Strawson’s. My concem is not primarily with the question; is Donnellan right, or is Russell (or Strawson)? Rather, it is with the question: do the considerations in Donneilarfs paper refute Russell’s theory (or Strawson’s)? For definiteness, I will concentrate on Donnellan versus Russell, leaving Strawson aside. And about this issue I will draw a definite conclusion, one which I think will illuminate a few methodological maxims about language. Namely, I will conclude that the considerations in Donnellan’s paper, by themselves, do not refute Russell’s theory. Any conclusions about Russell’s views per se, or Donnellan’s, must be tentative, IfI were to be asked for a tentative stab about Russell, I would say that although his theory does a far better job of handling ordinary discourse than many have thought, and although many popular arguments against it are inconclusive, probably it ultimately fails. The considerations I have in mind have to do with the existence of “improper” definite descriptions, such as “the table," where uniquely specifying conditions are not contained in the description itself.. (shrink)

are synthetic a priori judgements possible?" In both cases, i~thas usually been t'aken for granted in fife one case by Kant that synthetic a priori judgements were possible, and in the other case in contemporary,'d-". philosophical literature that contingent statements of identity are ppss. ible. I do not intend to deal with the Kantian question except to mention:ssj~".

Saul Smilansky presents an original new approach to the problem of free will, which lies at the heart of morality and self-understanding. He maintains that the key to the problem is the role played by illusion. Smilansky boldly claims that we could not live adequately with a complete awareness of the truth about human freedom and that illusion lies at the center of the human condition.

Presentación del número de la revista Ideas y Valores dedicado a la obra de W.V.O Quine con ocasión de su fallecimiento.

One requirement for the formation of an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee is that they include a community member who embodies the values of the general population. This study’s aim is to investigate whether community members use moral arguments when deliberating a case of nonhuman animals used in experimentation. To this end, we tested the responses of community members in a situation similar to those confronting members of IACUC. The participants’ evaluation of the protocol was consistent with the mandates (...) of IACUC. We also found that overall no moral argument played a significant role in their evaluation of a protocol. Only arguments based on loyalty to the human species played a moderate role in the evaluation of using animals in experimental research, in a way similar to using some moral arguments regarding the importance of human welfare to justify the use of animals in experimental research. (shrink)

1. Lying -- 2. The problem of what is said -- 3. What is said -- 4. Is lying worse than merely misleading? -- 5. Some interesting cases.

Under the influence of Quine’s famous manifesto, many philosophers have thought that logical theories are scientific theories that can be ‘adopted’ and tested as scientific theories. Here we argue that this idea is untenable. We discuss it with special reference to Putnam’s proposal to ‘adopt’ a particular non-classical logic to solve the foundational problems of quantum mechanics in his famous paper ‘Is Logic Empirical?’ (1968), which we argue was not really coherent.

This paper presents key elements of Paolo Prodi´s historiagraphic theory that allow us to include him in the contemporary debate on the rol of religion and morality within democratic societies. The text is developed in three moments. First, we will briefly describe the aforementioned debate. Second, we will present the theorical elements found in Prodi’s works which are more relevant for the topic discussed. Finally, we will offer some critical comments in order to present what, for us, is still an (...) open discussion. (shrink)

Why is it that the modern conception of literature begins with one of the worst writers of the philosophical tradition? Such is the paradoxical question that lies at the heart of Jean-Luc Nancy's highly original and now-classic study of the role of language in the critical philosophy of Kant. While Kant did not turn his attention very often to the philosophy of language, Nancy demonstrates to what extent he was anything but oblivious to it. He shows, in fact, that the (...) question of _philosophical style_, of how to write critical philosophy, goes to the core of Kant's attempt to articulate the limits, once and for all, that would establish human reason in its autonomy and freedom. He also shows how this properly philosophical program, the very pinnacle of the Enlightenment, leads Kant to posit literature as its other by way of what is here called the _syncope_, and how this other of philosophy, entirely its product, cannot be said to exist outside of metaphysics in its accomplishment. This subtle, unprecedented reading of Kant demonstrates the continued importance of reflection on the relation between philosophy and literature, indeed, why any commitment to Enlightenment must consider and confront this partition anew. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the variety of |$I$|-modal ririgs. We characterize the congruence lattice of its members by means of |$I$|-filters, and we provide a description of |$I$|-filter generation. We also provide an axiomatic presentation for the variety generated by chains of the subvariety of contractive |$I$|-modal ririgs. Finally, we introduce a Hilbert-style calculus for a logic with |$I$|-modal ririgs as an equivalent algebraic semantics and we prove that such a logic has the parametrized local deduction-detachment theorem.

Desde una hermenéutica ontológica política se hacen visibles y audibles prácticas singulares a partir del punto de vista de los estudios latinoamericanos, los cuales apelan por una perspectiva de afirmación como propone Arturo Escobar respecto a una mirada sobre la diversidad y singularidad de accio..

El artículo analiza el caso de científicas negras en universidades colombianas, desde dos cuestiones fundamentales: El lugar que ocupan dichas mujeres dentro del campo científico, tomando en cuenta tanto los sistemas de medición oficiales como las asignaciones que ellas mismas, de modo reflexivo, otorgan a su papel dentro del sistema. Y segundo, analiza cómo a partir de prácticas comunicativas concretas, que asumimos como constitutivas del quehacer científico, estas mujeres se contactan con aquellos que están fuera del campo científico y se (...) constituyen como públicos no expertos. Nuestro análisis parte de la idea de que estas prácticas comunicativas construyen tecnologías del contacto, que pueden comprenderse desde un ethos del cuidado que aboga por un sentido de reparación y repolitización de la producción de conocimiento científico. (shrink)